History revisited

North Sydney first to know Great War would end

North Sydney’s history is affixed to a message that changed the world.

The small, Cape Breton community was the first on this side of the Atlantic to hear that after 1,570 days, or more than four years, the First World War would end.

In her book “Windows on the Past,” late author Elva Jackson described the port city’s atmosphere as news of the armistice began to spread.

“The relief of tension was so great that without the aid of radio, or TV, word spread almost simultaneously over the whole country,” she writes. “Practically everyone went to Commercial Street and waved flags in frenzied excitement as over 200 American servicemen marched down the street singing and beating every pot, pan and noisemaker they had.”

A special bulletin had arrived the morning of Nov. 10, 1918, at North Sydney’s bustling Western Union telegraph and cable office. It has been sent via an underwater cable from Europe, with the war department announcing all hostilities would cease at 11 a.m. the following day.

A placard at the North Sydney museum states that a Mrs. Annie Butler Smith, one of only a few women who worked at the centre, was the operator to receive the message in Morse code.

“Although it was supposed to be under wraps — after four years of handling all kinds of bad messages such as casualty lists, defeats and sinking of ships and whatnot — the telegraph operators couldn’t keep that one a secret,” said North Sydney historical society member Richard Rose.

“That was the only thing that we can find in the more than four years that ever leaked out of Western Union, but the word of that was too good to keep quiet.”

Unlike Jackson’s account, Rose is apprehensive to believe the news had travelled well beyond North Sydney.

“It would have been possible that it had gotten out into the surrounding communities,

like across the harbour in Sydney or in Sydney Mines perhaps,” Rose said.

“At that time there were virtually no roads between here and Sydney. The old one that’s Keltic Drive now existed but it was just a cart track, so the major connections between Sydney and North Sydney at that time were the ferries that ran across the harbour.”

An Armistice Day headline in the Sydney Daily Post from 1918 reads that at four o’clock in the morning a bulletin was received announcing the signing of a truce with Germany.

Rose said that evening prior, North Sydney residents partied well into the night around a large bonfire after parading through downtown streets.

Although it was a Sunday, the local bars opened and served patrons until the liquor ran dry.

“We’re planning on recreating the day as much as we can,” said Rose as to the North Sydney historical society’s upcoming plans for Saturday.

“We’re going to recreate receipt of the message at the (North Sydney) museum, which we’re going to rebrand as Western Union for the day. A parade will also cover part of the same route (they took) through the downtown.”

Rose said at the time of the war, the Western Union office in North Sydney was the busiest out of more 600 courier offices around the world.

“It was guarded more closely than any other facility, in and around Sydney harbour,” he said. “There was a guard house by the building and it was guarded around the clock.

“Even before the war started, back in 1913, this cable office was processing more than 30,000 messages a day — so the start of the war would only have added to the amount of traffic that was here.”

The impressive stone structure on Court Street was the second Western Union facility in the former town. The first

building, which is still standing, was situated at corner of Commercial and Union streets.

Built in 1914, the Court Street structure with its reportedly metre-thick walls was viewed as necessary in keeping up with a growing demand.

Gordon Sampson, who founded the local historical society, said all wartime news that flowed between Europe

and North America would have travelled through North Sydney.

Sampson said certain handpicked telegraphers were also selected for “special training in sending and receiving military messages in secret code.”

At the peak of its business, the Western Union building boasted about 325 civilian and military employees, up from only about 25 workers in years

prior.

The facility would fall victim to advancements in automation during the late 1920s, first resulting in a staff reduction followed by its subsequent closure in 1962.

The building was demolished in 2016, after sitting idle for years.

CAPE BRETON POST PHOTO SUBMITTED BY BEATON INSTITUTE, CAPE BRETON UNIVERSITY SUBMITTED PHOTO/NORTH SYDNEY HISTORICAL MUSEUM The morning edition of the Sydney Daily Post for Nov. 11, 1918 informs readers that the armistice was signed and the war would end at 7 a.m. Atlantic time. A bulletin with the news arrived at 4 a.m. Two more editions of the paper would be printed that day. Western Union telegraph and cable office workers are shown in this historic North Sydney photograph, circa 1920. Left: The Western Union telegraph and cable office in North Sydney opened in 1914 and was the first to receive the message that the First World War would end.

SUBMITTED BY BEATON INSTITUTE, CAPE BRETON UNIVERSITY At the height of the war, a Western Union office in North Sydney grew from a dozen employees to over 325 and received upwards of 30,000 messages daily. The inside of the building is pictured here sometime after 1914.

CAPE BRETON POST PHOTO A second edition of the Sydney Daily Post declares peace after an armistice between German and Allied forces was enforced on Nov. 11, 1918. A third printed edition would later emerge with details that Germany would be forced to evacuate from Belgium and France within 14 days.