Terrorism Strikes Franklin

February 28, 1919
WHEN TERRORISM
STRUCK FRANKLIN
Copyright, Alan R. Earls 2019

Sanborn Map, 1899 Copyright, Alan R. Earls 2019

BACKGROUND:
Who Were the Bombers?
What Were Their Motivations?
What Actually happened?
--A Complex Story:
• about social conflict
• Politics
• Global events and local events
• …and about families and individual tragedies.

A Time of Rapid and Wrenching Change

Massive Changes, late 19th, early 20th Century
• Globalization and modernization of agriculture creates rural
unemployment
• Growth in scale of industry
• Few protections for workers
• Depressions, panics, and increasing availability of labor leads to tough
conditions for workers, sometimes wage reductions and work
increases.

Growing interest in socialism,
communism, and anarchism

Anarchists Kept Busy: EightHeads of state
assassinated from 1881 to 1914
Tsar Alexander II - Russia,
President Sadi Carnot
- France,
Prime Minister Antonio
Cánovas del Castillo-Spain
Empress Elisabeth- Austria
King Umberto I-Italy,
President William
McKinley-United States
King Carlos I-Portugal ,
King George I-Greece.

1892 Homestead Strike,
Attempted Assasination of Henry Clay Frick

• Born in Italy
• Imprisoned in Pantellaria
(where he met is future
wife), they escaped together
• In the US, active in NJ, VT,
MA (Lynn and Wrentham)
• Followers of his brand of
anarchism were known as
Galleanists

• Galleani Edited a radical Italian
language newspaper, Cronaca
Sovversiva, that often included
detailed bomb-making
instructions.

For several years prior to his deportation,
Luigi Galleani and family lived in Wrentham

Many Anarchists and Radicals in
the Franklin Area
Nicola Sacco (anarchist)
was active in the
bitter 13 week (IWW)
strike at Draper
plant in Hopedale
in 1913. Sacco also wrote for Cronaca Sovversiva. Copyright, Alan R. Earls 2019

World War I and the Russian Revolution
Supercharged Radicalism Internationally

World War I had many effects in US…
• Sabotage by German Sympathizers
• Sabotage by radicals
• Sharp repression of anti war and
many left-wing groups by Wilson administration
and start of “Red Scare”
▪ Draft by some immigrants & socialists

End of War: Formation of American Legion to
combat radicalism among ex-servicemen and
beyond

RADICALS?

Radicals!

Galleani Marked for Deportation

A Gathering in Taunton?

A strike in Franklin at the Ray Mill of American
Woolen Company

THE AFTERMATH LOCALLY

James Tarzin or Terzin (?)
• More than one spelling of name in press accounts
• No records available
• Presumed to have been carrying the bomb since few remains found
• ID’d from his draft card
• Had moved from Lawrence only a short time before

Domenico Palumbo born about 1889
Italy
• Boarder at 33 Ray Row 1904
• Weaver at Woolen Mill
• Married Angelina Sacco in Franklin, Dec. 1910*
• Three children
* 1930 census has Angelina on Uncas St, Married to an Anthony Palumbo with “children and step children”

Silvario Dechellis, born March 28, 1890
Campo di Giove, L'Aquila, Abruzzo,
Married
16 Dale St. Franklin
(Later, Ray Hill)

Eustachio DeChellis born June 2,1875
Campo di Giove, L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy
Married
23 Ray Hill, Franklin

Eustachio DeChellis death certificate
City Mills/Green Street Cemetery

…in Lawrence… ….and in Franklin…

THE AFTERMATH NATIONALY

April 1919, at least 36 Mail Bombs sent by
Galleanists to Prominent Americans (timed to
arrive for May Day)

June 2, 1919,8 large Galleanists bombs
detonated in eight cities.
“War, Class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the
powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will
have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we
will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will
destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.”
[Two deaths – a NYC Watchman and Carlo Valdinoci, Editor of Galleani’s
Newspaper, who was killed when bomb Intended for AG Palmer went off
prematurely]

Sept 16, 1920 Galleanist Bombing of Wall Street Kills 38 and injures more than 100

Mario Buda, suspected but never proven as mastermind
of NYC blast – Good friends with Sacco and Vanzetti and
wrote for Cronaca Sovverica.

Nov 11, 1919, Centralia “Massacre” in
Washington State
Burial of IWW member, Wesley Everest, tortured and
lynched. Several IWW members convicted of second-
degree murder in deaths of four Legionnaires.
Four Legionnaires killed by IWW members

The Palmer Raids, Nov. 1919: US AG Palmer on left, his key
subordinate John (aka J. Edgar) Hoover, future head of the FBI

1920 Presidential Election: Strong showing by
Socialist Candidate Eugene Debs, campaigning
from Prison (!)
Harding won…but in Mass. Debs polled
3.25 percent overall but nearly 6
percent in Plymouth county and
MUCH higher in socialist-stronghold,
Brockton!

Payroll Robbery, April 1920, at Slater & Morrill
factory in Braintree. Two men
killed:Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro
Berardelli

Vanzetti and Sacco

: 3 percent
of each ethnic
group’s portion
of 1910 census

Sacco & Vanzetti, Executed Aug. 1927

Judge Webster Thayer
"Did you see what I did with those anarchistic bastards the other day?"

Remains of Judge Thayer’s Worcester Home
after bombing 1932

Franklin Sons of Italy – Quattro Eroi (“Four
Heroes”)
Founded in 1928, named in
remembrance of four young Italian-
American men killed in World War I
• Emilio Daddario
• Alfred Mucciarone
• Alexander Patate
• Patrick Ristaino

Cristy Dominic Palumbo, FHS 1929

The Galleani Family
July 1919 Sentinel report on Wrentham
High School Graduates
• Cossyra (the Greek name for
Pantellaria, the island on which
Luigi was imprisoned)

Oath of Allegiance of Dr. Ilia (or Ilya) Galleani

Widow DeChellis works as
seamstress in 1950s and
1960s at Priscilla’s of
Boston along with another
convicted anarchist from
NJ making high fashion
clothing for the likes of
Grace Kelly!

Later Generations Remember…and Forget

2010: Braintree creates memorial to men
killed in 1920 `Sacco & Vanzetti robbery’
Greatgrandsons of Frederick Parmenter sit in “cage” in which S&V were tried in the 1920s at Braintree Town HallCopyright, Alan R. Earls 2019

Descendants of shoe factory guards, Frederick
Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli
ride to dedication of memorial in period cars, 2010

Today, Professor Sean Sayers, Luigi Galleani’s
Grandson, teaches at University of Kent (UK)

Strangely, Luigi’s old neighborhood is now the
upscale Wrentham Village Mall!

2018

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Terrorism Strikes Franklin

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