Vince Coleman

Who was Vince Coleman?

Patrick Vincent Coleman was a train dispatcher for the Canadian Government Railways who was killed in the Halifax Explosion. Today he is remembered as one of the heroic figures from the disaster.

On the morning of 6 December 1917, the 45-year-old Coleman and Chief Clerk William Lovett were working in the depot station near the foot of Richmond Street, only a few hundred feet from Pier 6. From there, trains were controlled on the mainline into Halifax. The line ran along the western shore of Bedford Basin from Rockingham Station to the city's passenger terminal at the North Street Station, located at the corner of Barrington and North Streets.

At approximately 8:45 a.m., there was a collision between SS Mont-Blanc, a French munitions ship carrying a deadly cargo of high explosives, and a Norwegian vessel, SS Imo. Immediately thereafter, Mont-Blanc caught fire and the crew abandoned ship. The vessel drifted from near the mid-channel over to the pier on the slack tide in a matter of minutes and beached herself. A sailor, believed to have been sent ashore by a naval officer, warned Coleman and Lovett of her deadly cargo of high explosives. The overnight express train No. 10 from Saint John, NB, carrying nearly 300 passengers, was due to arrive at 8:55 a.m. Before leaving the office, Lovett called CGR terminal agent Henry Dustan to warn him of a burning ship laden with explosives that was heading for the pier. After sending his initial message, Coleman and Lovett were said to have left the CGR depot. However, the dispatcher returned to the telegraph office and continued sending warning messages along the rail line as far as Truro to stop trains inbound for Halifax. An accepted version of Coleman's Morse code message reads as follows: