WHEN THE HALIFAX EXPLOSION OCCURRED, IT WAS JUST ELEVEN days before the 1917 federal election and Canada’s prime minister, Sir Robert Borden, was in nearby Prince Edward Island wrapping up his campaign in the Maritimes before making a final trip west. Borden finished the day in PEI speaking to an evening meeting in Charlottetown. Then he cancelled his trip west. After crossing from Charlottetown to Pictou, Nova Scotia, on Aronmore, a federal government buoy tending vessel, he boarded his special train for Halifax, the constituency he had represented in the previous Parliament. (In 1917, Borden stepped aside to allow one former Liberal Protestant and one former Conservative Roman Catholic to run as Unionist candidates in the two-member constituency.) Like many others, Borden was delayed by the snowstorm. He arrived Friday afternoon, thirty hours after the explosion.
In the wake of the explosion, Halifax was inundated by trains carrying people and supplies, and by a flood of messages that swamped telegraph offices. Much of the response came from New England States: Maine, Rhode Island, and especially Massachusetts. Even without the Americans, however, Halifax would have been overwhelmed. In 1957, when Charles Fritz and J.H. Mathewson first labelled the overwhelming response to disaster “convergence,” they were unaware of what happened in Halifax in 1917. If they had known, they would have used Halifax as a perfect example of what they had in mind.
The prime minister was only one of the many VIPs in Halifax after the explosion. By the time he arrived, the head of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, George Graham, was already there, as was J.T. Hallisey of the Canadian Government Railways. They were joined by C.A. Hayes of the Intercolonial Railway, who hitched his private car onto the first train to leave Moncton. Before long, there was also F.R. Gutillos, general manager of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad (former head of the Canadian Government Railways). There were the head of the Canadian customs service, the mayor of Truro, and the mayor of Sydney. There was Sir John Eaton of Toronto, whose store T. Eaton Company Ltd. pioneered the guarantee “Goods satisfactory or money refunded,” and whose mail-order catalogues dominated Canadian sales. Other arrivals included seven telephone executives: O.J. Fraser, general superintendent of New Brunswick Telephone; A. McCoy, plant superintendent eastern division of New England Telephone and Telegraph; H. Williston, traffic department Bell Telephone; S.G. Donelly and C.D. Sibley of Northern Electric; and two of Maritime Telegraph and Telephone’s own senior executives, C.F. Brown from Truro and W.A. Winfield from Sydney.
Few VIPs came alone. Prime Minister Borden had with him his staff, a cabinet colleague, Frank Carvell, four officials from Charlottetown, a physician, Alex Ross, and fourteen nurses from the Island hospital. (The nurses had been requested—Halifax wired the PEI hospital asking for help—but the others had not.) Gutillos brought a trainload of building supplies. Sir John Eaton’s train included two private cars and three freight cars loaded with food and clothing. One private car was for Sir John, the other was for his staff of seventeen. And most VIPs were important enough for someone in authority to take the time to meet them. The minister of Militia, for example, wired F.A. Gillis of the Transport Committee about Sir John’s impending arrival: “Sir John Eaton leaving Toronto tonight with special train with doctors, nurses, carpenters and supplies. Should arrive Halifax Monday afternoon. Please arrange to meet him and render necessary assistance.” When the Governor General arrived some days later, he was met by the lieutenant-governor, McCallum Grant; the chair of the Halifax Relief Committee, R.T. MacIlreith; Mayor Peter Martin; Rear-Admiral Bertram Chambers; Major-General Thomas Benson; and Lieutenant-Colonel Bell.
For a few hours, Halifax was desperate for assistance. Before forty-eight hours passed, however, Mayor Martin asked the railways to advise travellers that access to the city was restricted. Despite this, people and supplies continued to pour in, partly because some visitors were too important to stop, partly because the response began before controls were applied, partly because all of those offering assistance felt their own contributions were of value, and partly because so many people had family in Halifax. Myrtle Shepherd recalls hearing arguments about who should go even when the first train set out from Sydney. “They had blankets and medicine and stuff and people were hanging onto the doors. They said they didn’t want too many people: they would be in the way. People got on the train anyway,” she said. The problem was not just that more and more people kept arriving: there was simply no place to put them.
The first signs of overload were evident at 5:40 p.m. the day of the explosion, when the group from New Glasgow and Stellarton arrived. Officials assigned the physicians and nurses to various hospitals where their skills were badly needed, but they had to find other jobs for the firefighters as all the fires were out. The firefighters worked as hospital orderlies and did security patrols Thursday night. And they did excellent work at Camp Hill (the military convalescent hospital). But their fire equipment was never unloaded. Long before the prime minister’s party arrived Friday evening, there were also far too many trained medical persons. In an effort to stop the deluge, Lieutenant-Governor McCallum Grant wired Mayor Harvey Pipe, of Amherst, stating, “at present would not suggest sending any more nurses.” Similarly, the chairman of the relief committee, R.T. MacIlreith, requested that the Governor General ask Maine not to send any more physicians and nurses. Those telegrams were like fingers in a porous dyke. There were already trains en route from Sydney and Saint John, Toronto and Ottawa, as well as Boston, New York City, and other American centres. At one point, eighteen relief trains passed through Truro in eighteen hours. Militia Headquarters in Ottawa wired the details of what was on board one train:
Following details and stores left here tonight by Ocean Limited Stop Thirteen medical officers, four nursing sisters, two bakers, twenty carpenters with tools Stop Two cars under escort one N.C.O. and four men contain the following Stop Nine hundred cheese Eight hundred biscuits Five thousand jam One thousand five hundred corned beef One thousand flour Four thousand beans Three thousand rolled oats One thousand rice One thousand tea One thousand salt Two thousand coffee and fifteen hundred bacon Ordinance stores five thousand blankets one thousand suits underwear one thousand pairs socks five hundred greatcoats Stop Also supply medical stores with three medical panniers and two medical companions Stop Should you require more food or clothing wire at once and same will be shipped tomorrow.
In an attempt to slow down or stop this deluge, at the mayor’s request the superintendent of Canadian Government Railways, J.T. Hallisey, now recovering from his head injuries, published this notice:
ALL CONCERNED
On account of the congested conditions in Halifax and lack of accommodation and food, unless persons can be of actual service in rendering assistance no one will be allowed to enter the city without a pass from the Military authorities to be obtained at Rockingham. Advise all applicants for transportation to that effect and refuse sight seers permission to board trains.
The day that notice was published, 8 December, just forty-eight hours after the explosion, inspectors started boarding incoming trains to ask passengers why they were coming to Halifax. Those coming to aid relatives or whose services were needed were issued passes and allowed to carry on.
FIGURE 10.1 | Official passes, which allowed access to the Devastated Area for official business or to search for relatives, demonstrate a fair degree of organization—before the Americans arrived. Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, M2000.49.1.
The others were detained then put on the next outgoing train. That same day, Major-General Benson asked that no further soldiers be sent until they were requested: “Relief parties began coming into the city many without previous warning and what with the loss of the Armouries and Wellington Barracks and the housing of homeless men and children in the huts on the commons, every available quarter became filled.” The following day—Sunday, 9 December—the Halifax Relief Committee issued a formal statement advising that neither physicians nor nurses were required: “The executive of the relief committee requests that … doctors and nurses and other volunteer helpers kindly do not come to Halifax without being advised their benevolent services can be immediately and sensibly used.” In Toronto, twenty-five nurses who had already boarded a train got off and waited for further orders. (A few days later twenty nurses did come from Toronto and stayed a week.)
The same day that he asked the railways to monitor incoming traffic, Mayor Peter Martin tried another approach. He issued a formal proclamation asking that all non-residents not engaged in relief work or on business of extreme emergency leave Halifax and stay away for two weeks. On 12 December, because some people were willing to leave but could not afford to do so, the Halifax Relief Committee agreed to pay their transportation. A few people did leave. Harry Kitz sent his wife and daughter to the country while his house was being repaired. Duncan Cruikshanks and his surviving daughter, Laurie, moved to Truro. (Mr. Cruikshanks lost three children in the explosion. His wife died in hospital in Halifax on 18 December.) The Pratts sent their daughters Mary, thirteen, and Elizabeth, sixteen, to St. Martha’s hospital in Antigonish. This outflow did not make up for the incoming deluge.
The problem was that asking people not to come was easy, but stopping them was far more difficult. Obviously, no one was going to tell the prime minister or the Governor General they were not welcome, but it was equally difficult to stop military personnel, reporters, people with professional credentials, or relatives of the victims. Charles Richmond, for example, came from Providence because his wife’s sister-in-law and two children were dead, and a third child was in hospital with one eye gone. Arthur Parker and his father came in from Owl’s Head to search for Arthur’s brother, Harvey. Arthur Parker had been married in Halifax three days before the explosion and Harvey was his best man. Now Harvey was missing. Harold Anslow came in from Wolfville to search for his daughter, Katherine. He was editor of a weekly newspaper and not the sort of man stopped by a railway inspector. Parker’s search was unsuccessful—Harvey’s body was never located—but Anslow’s daughter was not even injured: she was away at a printing shop when her desk was splattered with glass. The biggest problem, however, was supplies, not people. Everyone wanted to help and the lists of supplies went on and on:
In many Nova Scotia towns, schools closed and children were sent house to house to collect donations. Gus Johnson in Lunenburg recalls the dishes rattling when the explosion occurred. He also recalls the blizzard the next day and the canvassers coming to his door. “They came around looking for clothes or food or anything we could give them.” John Holder was one of those canvassers. He and a young friend were given a horse and buggy and told to solicit supplies. It was the first time they had driven on their own. He still remembers the man who provided the horse and buggy, Solly Knickle, and the horse’s name, Pansy. “When we tried to go around one corner, there was a granite marker. The wheels caught the marker. We darned near tipped over.”
Arthur Caulfield, later an Anglican priest in Saint John, recalls being asked to bring donations to his school in Ottawa. There were three carloads of supplies shipped from Ottawa on Saturday, two more on Sunday. The Province of Ontario sent four train cars from Toronto loaded with relief supplies—glass, putty, beaverboard, nails, and other building material—and with them sent three senior officials: J.W.S. McCullough, the provincial officer of health, a Frederick A. Dallyn, the province’s sanitary engineer, and Col. F.W. Marlow, a prominent Toronto surgeon and former assistant director of medical services for Military District No. 2 in Ontario. The minister of Railways and Canals announced that “all regular schedules were cancelled and special trains from all parts of the system were rushed through to Halifax.” He cancelled his own electioneering and headed to Halifax. Eventually, one train even brought 300 cases of toys from Allied soldiers interned in Switzerland, shipped by sea to Boston and then by rail to Halifax.
The urge to contribute was compelling. When Black George, the champion prize steer from the Guelph winter fair, was sold at the Toronto Union stockyards at the record price of one dollar a pound, James Harris of Harris Abattoir, who bought the steer, announced the animal would be sold again and the money donated to Halifax. James Leask of Fairview, the farmer who bred Black George, said half the money he received—$680—would be given to the Red Cross. There were so many special trains that schedules were disrupted even at railway division points like Brockville, Ontario—1500 kilometres from Halifax.
When word came that 150 homeless victims were coming to Shubenacadie, more than 300 people jammed the station platform to meet the eight o’clock train. They were deeply disappointed when no one arrived. Everyone turned out again Sunday, this time to ship relief supplies on the 3 p.m. train: “They came through the snow, slush and water bearing their parcels of good things in autos, express wagons, buggies and on foot until something like two thousand pounds of meat, bread, cakes, etc., had been ready for shipping.” The Borden Milk Company sent three carloads of condensed milk, coffee, and cocoa. Telfer’s Wood-working Company Limited started to work solely to fill the needs of Halifax: all other orders were set aside. In Truro, W.L. Connor of Connor’s Shoe Store proclaimed: “Realizing there will be a shortage of footwear among the sufferers from Halifax we will be pleased to donate any kind of footwear up to an amount of one hundred dollars.” There were so many different things being requested and being sent that, to some, the relief committee seemed confused. An editorial in Sydney commented: “An urgent call one day for clothing, following on the succeeding day that it is not clothing but bandages which are required and that being followed on the next day by the assertion that there are plenty of bandages and that the need is for glass, tar paper and building materials; then that it is for motor trucks, and again the essential thing is to get workmen for reconstruction, surely constitute a series of conflicting statements which argue a sad lack of organization somewhere.”
Needs were continually shifting, however. One reason was that the response to any request was overwhelming. This was not known in Halifax until the goods started to arrive. By then, more material was already on the way. There was a second problem: even when Halifax did make clear what it wanted, others would not always listen.
In Toronto, Mayor T.L. “Tommy” Church sent his city’s “deepest sympathy” and requested, “Advise us forthwith what assistance and aid we can give you. We are at your service and will dispatch any help needed by special train.” Church then called a special meeting with his senior councillors and officials. They decided to wait for more details before dispatching relief supplies, but they also opened a clothing depot at the old Registry Office on Richmond Street, where teams of women sorted the used clothing that poured in. There were so many donations that the Red Cross opened a second depot a few blocks away. Although its volunteers were sorting the old clothes, Red Cross officials in Toronto were convinced it was new clothing that was needed, so they issued a special appeal to Toronto merchants: “What we do want now is new things, is that the merchants will send NEW things new boots and shoes, clothes and blankets, boots and everything else. We want every retail and wholesale firm to give at least something out of their stock.” But Halifax needed neither old nor new clothing. When a reply did come to the mayor’s wire, it was from the publisher of the Halifax Herald, Senator W.H. Dennis, and it asked for building materials, not clothing, old or new: “The people of Halifax are thrilled by the magnificent demonstration of practical sympathy of your people. The horrors of the explosion are intensified by the biggest blizzard in many years. Food, glass, lumber and similar material are urgently needed to provide for the erection of temporary buildings.”
Toronto had other ideas. It was still collecting clothing. Halifax tried again. The deputy mayor wired Mayor Church: “Articles most urgently required are glass, beaver board, tarred paper, putty, bedding and blankets. Would you please communicate above to other Ontario cities?” A reply from Church could not be found. When the hospital in Truro closed, it was left with unused clothing, so it asked the Red Cross in Halifax for advice: “My object in writing you is to ask you what we will do with the balance of the clothing we have on hand sent in by Red Cross branches all across the country. It may be that which is left in our hands, after being sorted over scores and scores of times, endeavouring to get all we could out of it and save us buying new, is second hand stuff, which is refused by the refugees and is of very little value.” Again, there is no record of the response. Canadian Red Cross policy today is to discourage donations of used clothing and to arrange with stores to provide new garments when clothing is required.
While the City of Toronto was debating what to do, the Canadian army in Toronto was not. Two days after the explosion, it sent to Halifax 34 carpenters, 28 glaziers, 21 bakers, and 1 officer—they brought along blankets and groundsheets. In addition, the army sent 24 nursing sisters. A day later it sent 185 carpenters, 76 glaziers, 33 bakers, 1 medical officer, and 6 other officers. This latter group was fully equipped with camping equipment, including tents.
Sydney was the one place that seemed to understand Halifax’s concerns. The initial train from Sydney carried physicians and nurses and some local dignitaries, including the mayor, a senior official from the steel company, a railway official, and a reporter. When the train reached Orangedale, halfway across Cape Breton, Mayor S.E. Muggah wired the clerk, J.A. Curry, and told him to have more help standing by:
Mr. Brown and Mr. McIsaac think it will be necessary for us to send the large fire truck to Halifax. Get in touch with the acting chief and have big pump in readiness for loading and supplied with sufficient men to handle it with necessary apparatus. Better also get in touch with mayor MacKay, New Waterford; Mayor McDonald, Glace Bay; Mayor Kelly, North Sydney; and Mayor McCormick, Sydney Mines. Mr. Brown expects word along the line as to the seriousness of trouble in Halifax and his department will tell people when to start train. Mr. McIsaac suggests you ask Mr. H.D. Macdougall, general manager of the steel corporation, for any equipment they can supply. Get in touch with Mr. A. Dunn. [Signed] S.E. Muggah
In North Sydney, fire equipment, including a pumper, was loaded on a flatcar. Arrangements were also made for the hose couplings to be switched during the ferry crossing across Canso. (For years, the hose couplings in Cape Breton had seven threads to the inch, the ones elsewhere, five threads to the inch.) Despite these plans, the equipment was never shipped—the clerk was not prepared to act until there was better information. From then on, instead of sending personnel who might become a strain on the limited sources in Halifax, Sydney made sure its relief crews were self-sustaining: “The hardware merchants, builders and contractors and the Steel Company assembled a train containing two cars of glass, cars of timber, roofing paper, nails, laths, putty, stoves and other reconstruction material. The Steel Co. fitted up a boxcar as a kitchen with cook stove and cooking equipment and sufficient food to last 100 men for 10 days. Another car was equipped with rough bunks and bedding for sleeping. Some 75 men were got together, all experienced construction workers.”
When that train arrived in Halifax, the Sydney contingent set up quarters at Pier 2 and worked repairing damaged buildings without becoming a strain on the local economy. Sydney’s grasp of the situation went much further. When the newspaper criticized the way Sydney was shipping supplies, Alderman A.A. McIntyre issued a public statement:
Reports from responsible people returning from Halifax were that while the necessity for clothing and reconstruction material could not be exaggerated yet the storms, the destruction of the railway yards in Halifax, the lack of wires and the accumulation of material which was commencing to pour into Halifax from all parts of eastern Canada and the New England States had brought about such a congestion that it was inadvisable to forward more men or material until some assurance was received from Halifax that they were able to receive them.
McIntyre said that on Monday, Sydney heard from Halifax that there was a need for trucks to help relieve congestion in the North End. On Tuesday, Sydney sent Halifax seven motor trucks, each with two chauffeurs, spare tires, and chains. The trucks were of all sorts and descriptions. One, from Cape Breton Wholesale, had been built before such vehicles had rubber tires. However, the shipment was exactly what was wanted because the congestion had reached crisis proportions. That same day, Major-General Benson wired the secretary of the Militia Council in Ottawa asking for fifteen more automobiles. Then he sent a second wire stating that the Reconstruction Committee needed twenty-five more trucks and drivers. That request was backed up by a wire from the Hon. Frank Carvell, who came to Halifax with the prime minister. Militia Headquarters wired back to Carvell to say it had met every request from Halifax, but the next day, Tuesday, 11 December, it wired Benson to say all the vehicles requested were on the way:
Fourteen three ton motor trucks, one three ton wrecking truck, one Cadillac ambulance, two Reo ambulances, one Cadillac touring car, one officer, 40 other ranks consisting of chauffeurs and mechanics. This detachment has with it large supply of oils, spare parts … and such other supplies as possible to make them self-sustaining. The detachment should reach Halifax midnight Wednesday [December 12]. The motor vehicles and equipment going by freight and request has been made to railways authorities to rush cars forward.
Before the explosion, the Canadian army in Halifax had three three-and-a-half-ton trucks, three Chalmers touring cars, and three Cadillac ambulances. (The ambulances were necessary to deal with the incoming flow of injured soldiers.) By mid-December, one week later, it had acquired five new three-and-a-half-ton trucks, five more Chalmers touring cars, one more Cadillac ambulance, and twenty-one other vehicles, including sixteen three-ton Brantford trucks (the others were Kelly trucks), a Brantford wrecking truck, and four Reo ambulances. Even that was not enough. On 20 December, the army hired Adams Express, a firm of teamsters, and gave them two non-commissioned officers and twenty men to help them move incoming cargo. On 4 January, Adams still needed half those men. One week after that, its services were no longer required. The congestion had taken five weeks to clear up.
The convergence was not confined to people and materiel. There was also information overload. The first telegrams went out from Halifax. These were the ones dispatched by the army, the railways, and, later, by Rear-Admiral Chambers. (He had toured the harbour and had seen the devastation before wiring London.) Next, the premier of Nova Scotia, G.H. Murray, wired all provincial premiers to tell them that Halifax had been hit by an appalling disaster. (Before sending it, he changed it to read “Halifax and Dartmouth.”) He said the province of Nova Scotia would “welcome the most generous aid from the sister provinces.” The telegram was sent to every provincial capital. Most provinces sent quick replies. H.C. Brewster, premier of British Columbia, wired back immediately that his province was ready to send $50,000. All it needed was an address—Murray had forgotten to put one in his telegram. (Brewster had a special interest in what was happening because his son was in the army in Halifax and was in the explosion.)
By the time Chambers’s telegram reached London, news had already arrived via the railways. The Intercolonial Railway’s message to Ottawa was quickly shared with the Governor General, the Duke of Devonshire, and he passed the news in a coded telegram to King George V at Buckingham Palace. That message underplayed what had happened: “Regret to report serious explosion at Halifax. Ship loaded with munitions caught fire and exploded. Serious fires broke out which are now reported to be under control. Particulars are hard to get as all direct telegraphic service interrupted. Several hundred reported killed and several thousands injured. Not a house in Halifax has escaped damage. Devonshire.” It was not long before Devonshire received additional information that made it clear the situation was worse than he had reported. He wired the King again: “Much regret to report to you that the latest reports from Halifax say two thousand dead and two thousand injured. It will be several days before exact figures are known. Everything is being done to relieve distress and care for the wounded.” Shocked by the news, the King wired a reply. He recalled that he had visited Halifax many times when he was Prince of Wales: “Please convey to people of Halifax where I have spent so many happy times, my true sympathy in this grievous calamity.”
Soon, thousands of wires were flowing into Halifax, some getting through on the erratic Canadian Pacific system (it had been damaged), while others received in Truro were then carried into Halifax by train. There were the official ones, the offers of help, the inquiries about missing persons. There were so many that even when the wires were restored, there was a backlog of 2000 official “priority” messages. (In that backlog were all the original wires offering help from Massachusetts and Maine.) Canadian Pacific Telegraph brought in twelve staff from Truro, Amherst, Saint John, Quebec, and Montreal to help handle the load. They finally caught up with the backlog on 20 December, two weeks after the explosion.
The Prince of Wales wired from Italy, where he was serving with the British army. The president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, wired from Washington: “In presence of the awful disaster at Halifax, the people of the United States offer to their noble brethren of the Dominion, their heartfelt sympathy.” The French president, Raymond Poincaré, wired the King: “I wish to express to your majesty on the occasion of the sad catastrophe in Halifax my deepest sympathy and I beg you kindly to forward to the people of Canada the cordial and faithful remembrances of the French people.” Commander Evangeline Booth of the Salvation Army wired from New York: “The calamity which has befallen Halifax has stirred the deepest sympathy of my heart. During my eight years in Canada, I visited the city often. Have telegraphed sympathy to the mayor.” There were similar wires from all over the world. Some were merely expressions of sympathy. Others included money. The King sent a personal gift of £1000 (then $5000 Canadian). Barbados and Bermuda also sent money.
Besides the official messages, many telegrams flowing into Halifax were from families of soldiers stationed in Halifax, and soldiers from Halifax who worried about their families. Information could take a long time to arrive. Cecil Hansford was a corporal with the 25th Battalion in France. When he heard rumours that something terrible had happened in Halifax, he went to the orderly room and was told there had been a big explosion. It was a month before he learned that Cora Balcom, the woman he intended to marry, was safe. Even then, he got the news indirectly: one of his troop mates had a letter from home. Al Chapman recalls his father, Sidney, who was serving overseas in the 1st Siege Battery after marrying Annie Greenough shortly before he sailed, having the same experience: “My father went through a very agonizing period, as he knew my mother and their son were directly involved and it was some time before he could determine they were safe. At the time, they were living with my mother’s parents on Young Street in Halifax, which was very close to where the explosion took place.”
Sometimes when the news came it was met with relief. Sometimes it was tragic. When Lieutenant W.J.A. Stewart, serving overseas with the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, asked for news of his family, the reply was positive: “Mr. Alexander Stewart [his father] wife and daughter in Halifax uninjured.” However, when relatives asked for news of Lieutenant F.J. Howley, they were told rather bluntly that his and his wife’s bodies were at the morgue. (Howley had served in France as a sergeant in the Canadian Army Medical Corps before returning to England for officer school and had just come back, on leave, to his home in the North End.) When Lillian Grandame of Montreal asked about her daughter, Mrs. Albert Thomas Smith (her son-in-law was with the Royal Canadian Regiment), the news was mixed. “I regret to state that Mrs. Smith was severely injured also three children while two other children suffered slight injury. All are making satisfactory progress.” Corporal Frank Rickets, who was a bomb instructor in England, had the same mixed message. On 12 December, six days after the explosion, he received a wire: “Regret have to advise you wife injured out of danger, boy killed recent explosion.” Not all messages went out right away. The bodies of two privates, Alfred Bendall and Frederick Stacey, both of the Princess Louise Fusiliers, were not recovered until 20 December. And Gunner Joseph Christian Ferris of the 73rd Battery, CEF, was an indirect casualty. The explosion brought back a nervous disorder he had suffered as a result of an explosion years before in civilian life. A nurse wrote his family to say that, once again, he was seriously ill. Realizing that the news was not getting through, some survivors wired their families to let them know they were all right. Paul Glasgow, a naval cadet, wired his mother that he had survived. Rodney Adamson, another cadet, sent a similar telegram to his aunt.
Those who knew someone in authority in Halifax used that personal connection to make inquiries—inquiries that were usually answered by hard-pressed officials. One inquiry came from Militia Headquarters asking about Gunner Raymond Brewster, 72nd Battery, CEF, the son of the premier of British Columbia. There was a quick reply: Brewster had not been injured. Chief medical officer Lieutenant-Colonel Bell replied to a query from the mother of a cadet from the Royal Naval College: “Saw Cadet Howard Pentelow personally he had several cuts about face all healing well Stop He will be ready to go home about Tuesday or Wednesday or next week.” A query came from Captain Sir John Eaton who wanted to know about a sailor on the patrol vessel HMCS Stadacona. That too got a quick reply: Stadacona was at sea at the time of the explosion—everyone on board was safe.
Because of all the problems, some residents asked if their husbands could come home to help. Annie Greenough Chapman asked if her husband could come home to look after her and her son. Her parents’ home had been wrecked. The army said no. Private F.W. Hodgson’s appeal was more successful. He ran two stores, one of them in the North End. His home and the store in the North End had been destroyed, and his wife was having difficulty finding a place to live. There were also problems getting the store back on its feet as most former customers were getting food and supplies from the relief organization. In his appeal for special leave, he stated: “The explosion … has destroyed my home … also my business … so great a loss of stock and custom, most of which was North End people who is at present receiving provisions from the relief stations.” Hodgson was given two months’ special leave to return to Halifax and try to put his business back together. After that, he would return to the front.
In addition to telegrams asking about the injured, there were scores of telegrams offering various kinds of help:
MAYOR, HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA
We offer five hundred dollars in drugs and medicines. Send us your needs.
McKesson & Robbins, Wholesale Druggist, New York City
PROVINCIAL SECRETARY, HALIFAX, N.S.
If you are requiring supplies of window glass, we have thousands of cases in Montreal and Toronto warehouses for immediate shipment.
Consolidated Plate Glass Co.
HON. THE MAYOR, HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA
In terrible disaster which has overtaken Halifax, Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., extends her heartfelt sympathy. We shipped today one box of hospital supplies, tomorrow one box of clothing.
W.S. McDowell, Mayor
The city responded as best it could:
MCKESSON & ROBBINS, WHOLESALE DRUGGISTS
Many thanks for kind offer. Please send ether, chloroform, tincture of iodine and antiseptic serum.
Lieutenant-Colonel McKelvey Bell, Chair, Medical Relief Committee
S. MCDOWELL, MAYOR, CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA
Many thanks for your kind assistance. Deeply appreciate your sympathy.
Lieutenant-Colonel McKelvey Bell
There were also telegrams from major firms trying to find out what had happened to their offices in Halifax. The Gutta Percha and Rubber Co. cabled its head office in Toronto that the windows in its premises had been broken, but otherwise things were all right. The Bank of Commerce reported damage, but no serious injuries to its staff. F.W. Woolworth reported that all the glass in both its stores was gone and that a number of staff had been injured. Canadian Allis Chambers was not so fortunate: it reported that its warehouse had been damaged and some staff severely injured.
When telegrams did reach Halifax, they were difficult to deliver. So many homes and buildings were damaged, and so many people had moved, the telegraph companies could not find their customers. They continually advertised in the newspapers for people to come and pick up incoming messages. The companies also found themselves short of delivery personnel. Marjorie Moir, who had first helped out at Camp Hill, spent six hours on Monday delivering telegrams. Often she would find everything in darkness then spot a gleam of light around the boards covering a broken basement window. She would bang at the window until someone answered. At one home, she found eleven children from the School for the Deaf and Dumb huddling together in the basement. In some cases, men replaced the usual telegraph boys because boys were not allowed into the cordoned-off North End.
Unaware of how difficult it was to deliver messages, many people and companies were frustrated at their inability to get information. One Toronto family—worried about their son—wired several times, but got no answer. When a woman in Cape Breton, Catherine Connor, was unable to get news of her daughter Lena, a student at the School for the Blind, she began to cry. A neighbour tried to comfort her by telling her: “We have to have these explosions. There are too many people in the world.” It did not seem funny at the time, but she and her daughter had a good laugh about it many times after her daughter arrived home safely two days later. It was understandable why so many messages were sent. Important persons, like the King and the Crown Prince and the president, wanted to express their concerns. Communities and individuals wanted to help and they wanted advice on how to do that. Families wanted to know about their relatives, including soldiers stationed in Halifax. Business firms wanted to know what had happened to their premises. But the overall effect was to swamp the system.
Gradually, the city brought the situation under control and the flow of personnel, supplies, and information began to match the needs. Two Truro women, Marie Hamon and Emma Patillo, came to Halifax because there was a shortage of dieticians. They had been helping in the emergency hospitals in Truro. The Academy of Medicine in Toronto sent two eye specialists, F.C. Trebilcock and J.H. McKinley. Christie & Brothers Co. in Amherst shipped 3000 coffins. All these responses resulted from specific requests for help. Similarly, the Red Cross kept shipping medical supplies when Noel Marshall, Red Cross president in Toronto, received this wire from a colleague in Halifax: “Required for immediate use supply of gauze, absorbent cotton, gooch spirits, adhesive plaster, sterilized dressings, quilts, rolled bandages, children and women’s clothing and underwear, stocks and boots. Weather extremely cold, blizzard raging. Red Cross of St. John and Montreal have ordered 100 oil heaters to relieve the situation.”
Other communities sent specialists. Toronto and Kitchener sent embalmers and undertakers to assist at the morgue. Kingston, Ontario, dispatched twenty-five skilled tradesmen—glaziers, carpenters, and bakers. Even as the controls were being applied, Colonel R.S. Low of Ottawa, the construction executive, appealed for those who had once worked for him to come to Halifax. Those willing to come were told to report to his company’s office of Bate, McMahon & Company on Elgin Street, in downtown Ottawa. He said he needed all kinds of construction personnel, including timekeepers. Low had been appointed as superintendent of the newly formed Reconstruction Committee. By then, two construction firms had announced they were ready to hire 400 carpenters, cover the cost of bringing them to Halifax, and pay them $4 a day. The Canadian Annual Review for 1918 says that eventually 3850 workmen came to Halifax.
Just as he was asking for specific types of workmen, Low was also requesting specific material. In a statement issued 9 December, he announced that rebuilding Halifax would require 50 tons of putty, 18,000 window sashes, 2000 doors, 250,000 matched boards, 1,000,000 square feet of roofing paper, 5000 square feet of wallboard, 1000 kegs of 2½-to-4-inch nails, 200,000 panes of glass, and 100,000 rolls of tarpaper. All donations would be welcome. A lot of that needed material did arrive, but so did a lot of things and people who were not useful. While many of those who arrived were needed, some were not. Even on 16 January, six weeks after the explosion, Low was sending out telegrams to Nova Scotia mayors trying to control the flood of unneeded workmen: “Please insert in your local papers that the Reconstruction Committee in Halifax only require carpenters with tools, plumbers with tools and bricklayers. We require no further laborers nor do we require any further teams at present. Notify all mills to let us know what one inch boards they have in stock planed one side and what price they wanted delivered at Halifax.”