Saylesville Massacre of 1934 - Moshassuck Cemetery - Central Falls, Rhode Island
Posted by: 401Photos
N 41° 53.485 W 071° 24.353
19T E 300405 N 4640518
Local textile mill workers, striking for better working conditions, clashed with police and Rhode Island State Guard in September 1934. A monument to casualties of the Saylesville Massacre is at the Moshassuck Cemetery in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
Waymark Code: WM162QA
Location: Rhode Island, United States
Date Posted: 04/22/2022
Views: 1
Local textile mill workers,
striking for better working conditions, clashed with police and Rhode Island State Guard troops. The conflict reached a tragic tipping point when Governor T.F. Green ordered the soldiers to restore order in September 1934.
A monument to casualties of the Saylesville Massacre -- a 48-hour stand-off, spanning two cities, between union workers and law enforcement and soldiers -- is at the northwest corner Moshassuck Cemetery in Central Falls, Rhode Island. The display has three components: a cast bronze dedication plaque mounted to a red granite marker, a birch tree, and a perfect circle of crushed white stones on the ground surrounding the two others. The plaque reads:
Saylesville Massacre
September 1934
In memory of those who were injured,
wounded or gave their lives for the
American Working Class during the
General Textile Strike in
Woonsocket and Saylesville.
Let us not forget.
Charles Coreynsk
William Blackwood
Jude Courtemanche
Leo Rovette
Dedicated by the
Rhode Island Labor History Society and
Working Rhode Island
Labor Day 2010
Barely 20 yards west of the monument, a remnant of collateral damage still stands and is pictured here: guardsmen bullets fired from a rooftop 1000 feet (305 m) to the east struck a headstone and left a pair of holes. The monument can be seen in the background to the upper left with a small American flag at its base. The shooter's location was the house with a gable roof visible in the far distance just above the center of the headstone.
You can watch a short news reel with footage of the melee at the cemetery and along Lonsdale Avenue here: Civil War At Saylesville (1934).