Timmins,Ontario,Canada

Noah Timmins was born in Mattawa in 1867. He is recognized as the leader of a group of five men who invested their energies and resources in founding first the LaRose silver mine in Cobalt, Ontario and later the Hollinger gold mine in Timmins, Ontario. Noah Timmins is unquestionably a founding father of this country's mining industry.
 

Timmins spent his youth in Mattawa, Ontario, where his father operated a general store. The Timmins brothers, Noah and Henry, inherited the store which serviced local miners and loggers. They took a keen interest in prospecting, which prepared Noah for that September day in 1903 when Fred LaRose stopped by and showed him several rich ore samples from Ontario's Long Lake, renamed Cobalt.

Noah and Henry were cousins to Josephine Desormeaux. Gus Dupont's wife, Melvina's mother.

It was during this time, 1903, that their close friend and  a well respected blacksmith, Fred LaRose would offer them a cut into a claim he had prospected and staked at Cobalt, Ontario.

The strike at Cobalt was discovered on a T&NO railway right-of-way. Apparently, LaRose threw a mining hammer at the eyes of a fox glinting in the bush, intending to scare it away. When he went into the bush to get his hammer back, he discovered that the glint was actually raw silver, in large, obvious veins that erupted right through the surface of the rock. A couple of weeks later, LaRose headed off to Hull, Quebec stopping off at the Timmins store in Mattawa. Fred pulled out a bag of samples. Noah, whose fifteen years of searching had little results, was obviously impressed. He telegraphed his brother Henry, then in Montreal, Quebec and told him to rush to Hull to talk LaRose into making a deal.

The brothers bought a quarter interest and their lives were about to change for ever. Mining was in Noah's blood  and the strike at Cobalt became the talk of the town and prospecting became everyone's dream of riches and a better life.

The Timmins brothers heart and soul were in mining, and with the help of Dr. Willet Green Miller -- chief Ontario geologist at the turn of the century -- and Dr. Goodwin, dean of mining at Queen's University. Dr. Miller has his own place in Northern Ontario toponymy, since he named the town of Cobalt. For fifteen years the brothers learned about geology and funded a number of expeditions, many of which they led themselves. By the time the news of the finds at Cobalt reached Mattawa, the brothers had parties north of New Liskeard, around Dane and Larder Lake.

Timmins brothers moved to Montreal and married the Pare sisters, whose nephew Alphonse Pare was a mining engineering student  at McGill University studying geology.In 1909, Pare informed his uncle Noah about a gold discovery made in the Porcupine area by Benny Hollinger and his grubstaker, Jack McMahon.

When his uncle asked him to over see his samples from the Porcupine area, Al Pare found  a gold vein bearing an area 3 miles wide and 5 miles long and wisely advised his uncle not to let go of the claim.
 

Visit the Timmins Web site for more information: http://www.city.timmins.on.ca/History-Timmins.htm

Noah Timmins joined the party in the  first camp on the Hollinger; 1909.  From the left: Mr. Reid, Jim Labine,  unknown, Alex Gillies, Noah Timmins  and R. G. Campbell.

Alec Gillies and Benny Hollinger after they staked the nucleus of the great Hollinger Mine.

This adventure would not only make the Timmins a wealthy family, but on January 1,1912 the town of Timmins Ontario would become a bustling little community.

Prospecting was hard work. Timmins and a party of 22 cut a road from the T&NO railway to the Porcupine claim. The road crossed a 12 mile expanse of ice, and Timmins recounted later how the horse teams "broke through the ice at least a dozen times" (Porcupine Advance: 12). Once across the lake, they still had to cut another 20 miles of road to the Minnesota in the middle of winter. Once there, Timmins and Pare camped in the bush, and one day Pare scratched the name "Timmins" on a board and nailed it to a tree. Noah was apparently flattered (ibid: 27). Obviously, the name stuck.

On with our story....

Henry Timmins's son, Jules would in later life become involved in the Schefferville mining find in Labrador, Quebec. When  the Quebec government ran a railway line to Schefferville in 1954, Jules would have the honour of driving the last spike.Iron Mines of the Labrador Trough,Fire Lake to Schefferville.

Not only were the Timmins boys well known in the mining and prospecting world, they were also respected and held in high esteem for their generous and charitable nature towards their fellow man.

Stop....Stop...

We must stop history here for a moment and reflect how these times would be affecting Gus and his family.

We see others around him following the Timmins brothers and breaking away from the traditional trapping, farming and logging and by doing so were becoming very successful at prospecting and mining.

....please read further

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Background Music:
The Cobalt Song
Great Canadian Tune Book

   For we'll sing a little song of Cobalt
   If you don't live there it's your own fault
   Oh you Cobalt
   Where the wintry breezes blow.
   Where all the silver comes from
   And you live a life and then some
   Oh you Colbalt
   You're the best old town I know.

You may talk about your cities
And all the towns you know
With trolley cars and pavements hard
And theatres where you go.
You can have your little auto
And carriages so fine
But it's hobnail boots and a flannel shirt
In Cobalt town for mine.

Old Porcupine is a muskeg
Elk Lake a fire trap
New Liskeard's just a country town
And Haileybury's just come back.
You can buy the whole of Latchford
For a nickel or a dime
But it's hobnail boots and a flannel shirt
In Cobalt town for mine.

We've got the only Lang Street
There's blind pigs everywhere
Old Cobalt Lake's a dirty place
There's mud all over the square.
We've got the darndest railroad
That never runs on time
But it's hobnail boots and a flannel shirt
In Cobalt town for mine.

We've bet our dough on hockey
And swore till the air was blue
The Cobalt stocks have emptied our socks
With the dividends cut in two.
They don't get any of our money
In darned old Porcupine
But it's hobnail boots and a flannel shirt
In Cobalt town for mine.

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