A Deadly Shift at the Clark-Nickerson Mill
A young laborer is crushed to death by a falling load of timber, marking a tragic end to his shift in the Everett lumber yards.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A fatal accident occurred late Wednesday afternoon in the yard of the Clark-Nickerson Company, resulting in the death of Eris Johnson, who was crushed under a load of lumber that overturned upon him. Johnson was employed by the company as a driver of a horse used to transport timbers from the mill to various points. While unloading, the heavy load became jarred, and falling from the truck, it pinned him to the earth. An ambulance was hastily called to take Johnson to the Providence Hospital, but he died within a short time from a crushed skull and internal injuries. The deceased was a man in the employ of the Clark-Nickerson Lumber Company. He was single and unmarried.
“While unloading, the heavy load became jarred, and falling from the truck, it pinned him to the earth.”
Early 20th-century Everett was defined by the high-risk, high-reward nature of the timber industry, where a simple miscalculation could prove fatal. Today, the industrial waterfront has largely shifted to different logistics, but the history of labor in these mills remains the bedrock of Everett's civic identity.
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