page_title: Joggins Formation
section_title: British settlement
hierarchical_section_title: Joggins Formation / History / British settlement
caption_attribution_description: English: A map depicting the Beaubassin region of Nova Scotia in 1755. The area was then on the frontier between British Nova Scotia and French Acadia. The caption reads: A plan of Chignecto (called also by the French Beau-Bassin) at the head of the Bay of Fundi upon the Istmus of Accadia shewing that harbour with its rivers, the situation of the English fort and fort possessed by the French, June 1755. The image has been cropped from the original to remove a border.
context_page_description: The Joggins Formation is a geologic formation in Nova Scotia. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period, including Hylonomus, the earliest known reptile. In addition to fossils, the Joggins Formation was a valuable source of coal from the 17th century until the mid-20th century.
  The Joggins Formation's spectacular coastal exposure, the Joggins Fossil Cliffs at Coal Mine Point, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.
context_section_description: British cartographers Edward Amherst and George Mitchell scouted the region in 1735, renaming the Adventurer's Clifts to "Grand Nyjagen". Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia Lawrence Armstrong was insistent on having the area colonized by British settlers as it would secure their dominance in the region, which was still largely populated by the Mi'kmaq and Acadians. On 30 August 1736 a land grant was approved for the area around the northernmost reaches of the Grand Nyjaden for the purposes of establishing a town named "Norwich" (present-day Minudie), but the community failed to be established and was dissolved on 21 April 1760. Also in 1736, Captain Thomas Durrel produced his own map of Chignecto Bay in which he referred to the cliffs as "Sea Coal Cliff" and New Castle Cove as "Grand Jogin".
  Acadian settlers continued to establish themselves in the region after the failed attempt to establish Norwich. In this period, the Acadians again began to mine for coal along the Grand Nyjagen cliffs and elsewhere, digging a line of coal pits from the coast to River Hebert, which came to be called the "Rivère des Mines des Hébert".
  A geographical description of Nova Scotia was published in The London Magazine in 1749. The article commented on the abundance of coal in the Bay of Fundy, referenced Henry Cope's failed mining project, and assured readers that "a better use will, doubtless, be made of this treasure, when Nova Scotia itself comes to be inhabited". Following Father Le Loutre's War, Beaubassin and other Acadian communities were destroyed by Jean-Louis Le Loutre as they retreated from the area, ending any ongoing mining efforts at the Grand Nyjagen. John Salusbury and Joshua Mauger both applied to mine coal from the site on 17 July 1750 and 24 June 1751, respectively, but were denied by the Board of Trade and Plantations as it would threaten the colonial economy, which relied on importing coal from Britain as per their system of mercantilism and foreign policy of preventing foreign industrialisation. The idea of mining locally was very attractive, as any firm exporting coal from Britain had to pay a duty of 11 shillings a ton, nearly twice the price that it sold for locally.
  Britain declared war on France on 17 May 1756, initiating the Seven Years' War. Governor Charles Lawrence petitioned the British government to reopen the Chignecto Bay mines in 1756 in order to fuel British regiments fighting in the Bay of Fundy region. The first British miners arrived at Grand Nyjagen in September 1757, selecting a mostly undisturbed section of cliff to dig into rather than Henry Cope's original mine.
  After the Seven Years' War ended in 1763, coal mining at Grand Nyjagen again stopped entirely. A land grant which included the cliffs was given to Joseph Frederick Wallet Des Barres in 1764, but Des Barres proved to be an absentee landlord. Though Des Barres became an important figure elsewhere in Nova Scotia, his lack of interest in developing Grand Nyjagen led to the coal there being forgotten for six decades. Though most Acadians were deported during the Great Upheaval, a small number eventually returned and established short-lived villages in the area, including Shedd Fisheries at Mill Creek (present-day Minudie) and Joggin (present-day Maccan) at one of the River Hibert coal pits. While the Acadians did occasionally mine coal in this area, Des Barres only leased land to them if they promised to build grindstone quarries there. The most prosperous quarry was Bank Quarry (present-day Lower Cove), which operated for fifteen years between 1815 and 1830 and was the only source for Nova Scotia blue-grit, an important and popular grindstone. The owners of Bank Quarry - Joseph Read and John Seaman - used the wealth generated from their operation to open a second quarry (present-day Rockport) in New Brunswick. Read and Seaman's New Brunswick and Nova Scotia quarries came to be known as the "North Joggins" and "South Joggins", respectively, and the name "South Joggins" soon came to mean the cliffs in general. For thirty years between 1800 and 1
caption: Map of the Chignecto Bay region, circa June 1775.
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