Philippe Emond's Story

The perils of work in the Lowell Massachusetts mills are made vividly clear by the life of my Grandma Pilot’s older brother, Philippe Emond, shown here in a photo recently sent to my mother by her cousin, Betty Cuper.

Philippe was baptized Joseph Philippe Emond on September 3, 1891 at St Patrice in Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec. He was the seventh child of Remi and Adele Emond. Grandma Laura Pilot, his younger sister, was the tenth child and was born in 1896. The family immigrated to Lowell, Massachusetts around 1899.

In the early morning hours of July 18, 1910, 18-year-old Philippe was working alone in the cloth room of the Massachusetts Cotton Mill. He was operating a shearing machine. The function of the machine was to cut the cloth threads which were left there in the weaving. In the process the webs are first sewed together by the ends and they are then passed over several rollers suspended near the ceiling to straighten and smooth out the cloth before passing it into the shearing machine.

The web parted during the process and Philippe had to bring the severed ends down to the sewing machine and reattach them. The only way to do that was to pass one end by hand over one of the upper rollers which was within inches of the rapidly revolving drive shaft. In the process of doing this work, Philippe became caught in the machine and was carried around the shaft.

According to the newspaper report of the accident, the first that anyone else knew of the injury was when other workers heard shrieks. They went into the cloth room and found Philippe on the floor in a pool of blood with his left arm torn from the shoulder. The news reported that in addition Philippe sustained two compound fractures to his right arm, one at the wrist and the other above the elbow. The young man was confined to the hospital for over two months in recovering from this injury.

Philippe sued the Massachusetts Mill the following year. It was a jury trial. These were the days before workers compensation laws. The burden of proof was on the injured worker. In order to receive compensation for injuries sustained, he had to prove to a jury that the employer was negligent. The original report of the suit said he was asking for $6,000 in damages. The suit came to trial in November of 1912, nearly two-and-a-half years after the accident.

The Lowell Sun provided detailed coverage of the case and was the source of the information about the cause of the injuries to Philippe Emond. The November 8, 1912 report said that the family was now asking for $25,000. Testimony was given by Remi Emond, Philippe’s father. The news report said the machinery was defective and that the young man was given insufficient warning. He did not know the danger of being caught.

The defense of the Massachusetts Mills was to “deny all of the material allegations contained in the statement of the plaintiff,” according to the Lowell Sun. The jury was then taken to the mill to view the scene of the accident and the court was adjourned until the following Monday. The court never reconvened on the case. The company settled out of court and the amount remained confidential.

Philippe may have never been able to work again. I found a reference to him in 1914 when he gave up a license to operate a billiard parlor. Ancestry.com had an image of his draft card from World War I. He was listed at the Ludlam street family home and it stated that he “lost and arm.” If you look closely at the photo, you will see an empty left sleeve. In the 1920 US census he was listed at the same address and his employment was shown as “none.” I have not yet found an obituary or date of death for my grand-uncle Philippe Emond.