Louisa Wells

Louisa Wells was born in Vermont in 1815 and came to Lowell to work in the mills as a weaver. She died in 1886, and her will directed the residue of her estate by used to erect a monument on her grave. Her family contested the will and the litigation lasted twenty years. The court’s final ruling was that her directions were to be followed. What was originally a modest sum; twenty years later would erect a major monument. Daniel Chester French received the commission to create the monument. Mr. French was the artist who created the Lincoln Monument in Washington D. C. and the Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts. His associate Evelyn Longman executed the design in Tennessee marble and required more than a year to complete the work. It represents an Angel of Mercy looking down at the figure of a tired worker holding a bobbin. The inscription is: “Out of the fibre of her daily tasks, she wove the fabric of a useful life.”