By: Yvonne Fox
“First Canso petitioner sees dream come true – sought signatures in 1883”
This was the headline for an article in The Halifax Herald’s August 11, 1955 newspaper.
Then 88 years old and living in Jackson Heights, New York, John O’Neil – who was originally from Mulgrave – was only 16 years old when he circulated the petition (on the mainland side of the Strait of Canso), rushing into the breach when his father (Henry) fell ill and was unable to do it.
These are design plans from 1902 for a bridge spanning the Strait of Canso.
O’Neil recalled that the people of Cape Breton started getting out petitions to the government in Ottawa as soon as they were promised that the Intercolonial Railway would be put through to Sydney.
“As soon as the line reached Mulgrave [in 1880], the agitation for a bridge across the Strait started. I don’t remember that anyone had the bigger and better project of a causeway in mind then,” he said.
O’Neil returned home for the Official Opening ceremonies on August 13, 1955.
By 1902, Dan MacDonald of Iona who was a Victoria County Municipal Councillor, was the Cape Bretoner who got the credit for introducing on May 7, 1902 a resolution to members of his council urging the provincial and federal governments to build a bridge across the Strait of Canso.
For many, many years afterwards, it continued to be assumed it was going to be a bridge. A poem was penned entitled “The Bocan Bridge of Canso,” alluding to it appearing to be a ghost since it seemed to be talked about only around election time.
This is the first in a series of columns from the Port Hastings Historical Society celebrating the 65th anniversary of the opening of the Canso Causeway, and the closure of the Mulgrave to Point Tupper ferry.