May 6th – Still working at the mill. Charley Bissle got wound around the bull wheel & it dislocated his shoulder. He will have to lay off about 2 months. A day or so later Mr Porter got whacked on the head by the chain on the carraige, but he is back at work now, but not on the carraige. Another fellow got his finger mashed flat between the belt and the wheel. The weather was warm today but cool at night. Another fellow got knocked in the head with the grabs, but he is O.K.
Jesse’s workday at the saw mill might have looked like this:
Charles Thompson Bissell just turned 36 years old around the time that he was injured. Since Jesse was writing on a Monday and spoke of this in the past tense, these injuries might have happened last week. The bull-wheel is the largest and most powerful of the wheels in an engine.
As demonstrated in the video above, the carriage is the platform where a log is loaded, like a bed, and it moves through the milling process on this platform.
Imagine this kind of work in the days before health insurance, workers’ compensation, and OSHA! These employees were the providers of their families, and if they were injured on the job, they also lost their paychecks until they were fit to work again.
