When gold was found in the hills on the opposite side of the river from Sherbrooke Village in the summer of 1861 it caused tremendous excitement throughout the province because Nova Scotians expected wealth similar to the California Gold Rush of 1849. The morning after the discovery, 500 men and women were in the neighbourhood of the discovery prospecting among the rocks with hammer or pickaxe.(111) By August 1862, two hundred and fifty houses, 8 stores, 5 Temperance hotels or boarding houses, a post office and 4 large crushing mills had been constructed at Goldenville. The merchants and mill owners made large profits selling goods and sawn timber at the mines, shops, hotels and boarding houses. A Deputy Gold Commissioner was appointed (William L. Pye). The general prosperity and hope were reflected in the growth of the village of Sherbrooke and construction of business premises and fine houses.
So great was the rush to the "diggings" during June and July 1862 that three small steamers were kept plying between Sherbrooke and Halifax, carrying men and material to the mines. The Relief Steamboat Company's steamer Neptune, J. W. Payne, Commander, left J. M. Watson & Company's wharf at Halifax every Monday and Thursday at 5 am for Tangier and Sherbrooke, and returned to Halifax the following day. The fare from Halifax to Sherbrooke was $2.00.(112) This schedule was not always adhered to. On one voyage in May the Neptune was delayed by dense fog and smoke from fires in the woods near Owl's Head, and took six days to sail from Sherbrooke to Halifax.(113)
In July 1862, Mr. Compton, editor of the Halifax Evening Express, who was interested in the gold mines at Goldenville, sailed from Halifax on board the steamer Relief.(114) He praised the attention and urbanity of both Mr. Hathaway and the steward; enjoyed his meals, but complained of the heat and lack of air in the gentlemen's saloon and the washroom. Mr. J. W. McKeen and Mr. Gunnison conducted him around Sherbrooke and the gold mines. This is Mr. Compton's description of Sherbrooke:
"At the mouth of the river at present, are two large barques, loading with deals sawn at the mill of Messers, McDonald & Co., at Sherbrooke, ten miles up the river. This mill, we are informed, has been kept so busily engaged in manufacturing boards for the people at the mines, that it has hardly been able to supply the demands of the miners.
The Village of Sherbrooke, situated on the east side of the river, presents at present a thriving aspect; but considering its situations and advantages as the shire town of the District of St. Mary's, and the length of time it has been settled, it is not in that advanced state that should be expected. The gold discoveries on the opposite side of the river have, however, this summer given an impetus to business in the village, and more buildings have gone up, and greater improvements have been made this year than have been witnessed for a half score of years previously. The village possesses a church (Presbyterian we believe), a neat court house, and quite a number of handsome private residences; but considering the increased number of travellers which the gold discoveries are attracting to the locality, the hotel accommodations are miserably insufficient; and an improvement in this respect is both necessary and desirable.
Directly opposite the village is what is called the "Landing". This is where the road from the gold "diggings" terminates. Here Messers McNab & Co. have a well arranged and well filled store, where every article the miners require is kept and sold at an extremely small advance upon Halifax prices. From the landing to the commencement of the thickly settled portion of the gold district, a distance of about two miles over which an excellent road has been made this summer... the number of buildings at the Sherbrooke diggings now number about one hundred and fifty. These include ten or fifteen stores, several blacksmiths, shoemakers, and tailors' shops, four buildings erected in connection with the same number of crushing machines, and a Public Hall. The buildings for the most part are small and temporary, but many of them are large and substantially built and tastefully painted. The number of persons at present occupying them and prosecuting gold mining is about four hundred... the baker and milkman go their rounds every morning (Sundays excepted). Express wagons and cabs run every quarter of an hour between the Landing and the settlement, and passengers are carried over a distance of two and a half miles for five cents, while in Halifax one cannot step into a cab and out again without paying twelve and a half cents."(115) (Sixpence sterling. Decimal system adopted in 1860).
The Sessions of the Peace of St. Mary's and the officials at Sherbrooke experienced some difficulties in administering the Gold Mines. A special Sessions of Peace was held in the Court House at Sherbrooke on the 19th February 1862 to establish and regulate a ferry between Sherbrooke and the west side of the Northwest Arm at the end of the road landing to the Gold Diggings, and also to establish a road district from the Northwest Arm to the Gold Diggings and to appoint a surveyor of Highways for the same; as well, there was a need to establish a road district from where Wine Harbour Road left the Indian Harbour Road to the Gold Diggings at Wine Harbour and appointed a Surveyor of Highways for it. Present at the meeting was Hugh McDonald, Custos; John Hattie, J. E. McKeen, Alex N. McDonald, William Pride and John Cumminger. They agreed that the ferryman should provide one scow and two boats for the ferry, and that he give bonds of $400 for the faithful discharge of his duty as ferryman. The boats were to have 16 feet bottoms, from 20 to 24 inches in depth and 5½ to 6 feet in breadth. When navigation opened, the first ferry should be at 5 o'clock in the morning and run until 9 o'clock in the evening until 8 pm, running every half hour of the daytime providing there are passengers to be ferried. The passengers were to be landed at or near John McDaniel's Wharf, and at or near the road leading to the Gold Diggings.
Rates charged for the ferry to the gold mines were five cents for every man and woman, children under twelve half price, for a horse twenty cents, for an ox twenty cents, for carts twelve and a half cents, and for passengers luggage, two cents per hundredweight. John McDaniel and Company were appointed as Ferry men.(116)
Some enterprising people must have planned to provide entertainment for the miners, visitors and inhabitants of the district with a dancing school at the Court House. This was rejected and at the October Term in 1862 the magistrates voted "That the Court House shall not be rented for the purpose of dancing, holding Balls or any such amusements". (117) They did allow the "use of the Court House be given free to all Temperance Meetings, Temperance Lecturers, and Lectures on scientific subjects when given free" and approved of "an application made by the Captain of the Volunteer Guards, J. A. MacDonald, for the use of the Court House free, for the purposes of drill, and other business connected with the affairs of said Guards, as well as the privilege of making a small room in the Court House for holding the arms of said Company."(118)
At the same Sessions the magistrates decided that "all applications for a License to sell Spirituous Liquors were rejected". This was unusual in either a lumbering or gold mining settlement in Nova Scotia of the period, but the temperance movement in Sherbrooke was very strong - probably because the people were aware of the dangers of excessive drinking in lumber camps and on timber drives. The Rev. George Patterson remarked in his sketch on the life of the Rev. John Campbell that "the Presbyterian congregation was sorely tried by the discovery of gold in several places near Sherbrooke. This brought as usual a large population, much of it of very loose character, and with time the effort for free drinking, and all its accompanying disorders. Few places have stood the test better. The people rose in their might to suppress intemperance, and to maintain order, and though at first there were a few outbreaks, which were soon suppressed, yet were long, the gold diggings became as quiet and orderly as any ordinary settlement in the country, and much more so than many... the Temperance of St. Mary's community is the more remarkable that it has on the one side fishing settlements on the shore, and on the other, large settlements of Highlanders... among both of which drinking usages still exist..."(119) Mrs. Hart reported that a Temperance Society had been organized at Sherbrooke in 1831.(120) Queen's Masonic Lodge, No. 34 was established in December, 1864 and chartered March 20, 1866.(121)
Gold mines were opened at Wine Harbour, about eight miles to the south east of Sherbrooke, and at Cochran Hill about eight miles north of Sherbrooke. The Goldenville Mines continued to produce steadily until 1888. About 1896 new leads were discovered and mining boomed for a few years. In 1906 a little work was done. The mines at Goldenville were worked somewhat during World War II but were abandoned in 1942. (122)