Worker ‘never had a chance’ in cofferdam collapse

Henry Moses Nealis, a carpenter, was crushed and drowned while working on a cofferdam that collapsed near the site of the proposed Main Street lift bridge (Bridge No. 13) in Welland, on Dec. 10, 1927.

Thirty-six years old at the time of the accident, Nealis was employed by subcontractor Georgian Bay Shipbuilding and Wrecking Co.

Maguire, Cameron & Phin held the contract to build the east and west abutments for the new Main Street lift bridge. Unfortunately, on Sept. 17, while a large concrete crib (or caisson) was being floated into position over the pilings for the east abutment, it accidently flooded and sank. The massive 360-tonne crib lay at the bottom of the canal in 6.7 metres of water.

Georgian Bay Shipbuilding and Wrecking, from Midland, was subcontracted to raise the crib. This was a challenging engineering project, requiring the construction of a large timber cofferdam that would be sunk over the crib. The company brought specialized equipment and divers to help, and Nealis, a skilled carpenter, was one of the construction team. Once the cofferdam was securely in place around the crib, the water could be pumped out. The crib would then be brought to the surface and manoeuvred into place over the pilings.

The pumping began on Saturday morning, Dec. 10. The whole procedure of raising the crib was expected to take only a few hours. By the middle of the afternoon, work was progressing well. Nealis was working inside the cofferdam, a dangerous place to be as it was being de-watered. About 5.5 m of water had been pumped out from the cofferdam and the crib had been lifted about 3.7 m. Eyewitnesses said that at about 4:30 p.m. the cofferdam collapsed. Six men working on the top of the cofferdam were hurled into the churning water and huge timbers came crashing down on those working below.

Police, headed by Chief George T. Crowe, answered the emergency call for assistance, and the fire department rushed to the accident scene with hook and ladder equipment. Drs. S. Nixon Davis, Wilfrid F. Warner and Frank P. Smith also hastened to the scene. The floating debris around the site made the rescue of the injured difficult.

Achille Bisson, a fellow worker, was found quickly but could not be revived. He was declared dead by drowning.

Rescuers continued searching for Nealis, and for a short while it was hoped that he might have been out of the cofferdam when it collapsed. William Mack, a diver for the Ca- nadian Dredging Co., volunteered to search for him, spending many hours in the cold, debris-strewn water. The perilous search ended about 10:30 that evening when, groping through the wreckage, he found Nealis’s body trapped beneath a wooden punt.

Friends and co-workers said Nealis “was always a man to put himself in the hardest of places.” They noted that “he was found where he had been working, lower in the cofferdam than anybody else. He was 15 feet (4.6m) below the surface, under two reinforcing studs. He never had a chance.”

Nealis and Winnifred Grace MacNeill married at the Roman Catholic cathedral in Saint John, N.B., on June 1, 1921. They came east in mid-1925 and at the time of the accident lived on Church Street in Welland. In addition to his wife, Nealis was survived by four sisters and five brothers in Fredericton. His wife returned to New Brunswick where she died in 1950.

Nealis’s body was taken to Patterson and Sons Funeral Home on East Main Street in Welland and later was sent to Saint John for burial in St. Joseph’s Cemetery. — This article is part of a series remembering the men whose lives were lost in the construction of the Welland Ship Canal. The Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial Task Force is a volunteer group established to design, finance and build a memorial to recognize workers who were killed during construction of the Welland Ship Canal. For more information about the memorial, or to contribute to the project, visit www. stcatharines.ca/CanalWorkersMemorial. N.B.) Nov. 20, 1891 (Royal Road, York County,

Dec.10, 1927 (Section 7, Bridge No. 13, Welland)

Crushed and drowned by collapse of cofferdam Carpenter, foreman, Georgian Bay Shipbuilding and Wrecking Co.