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Revere Mass.

Maurice Lerner, the Brookline Mobster Hired To Kill Fidel Castro

Maurice Lerner grew up in Brookline, Mass., and as a young man he was astute, polite and athletic. His athletic prowess landed him a baseball career that spanned 10 years playing second and third base and outfield. But it peaked at double-A ball, played out in tiny stadiums across the country.

Lerner had earned the nickname “Pro” – supposedly short for little professor – because of his studious nature as a kid. And in baseball he had a reputation as an early advocate of diet and fitness training in an era when most ballplayers relied purely on talent and genetics to keep them in the game.

But by the time his career wound down in 1962 and 1963, Lerner was moving into a life of crime. He knew how to induce fear in people, first with a baseball bat and later with a gun.

Maurice Lerner built a “shooting gallery” in his basement to practice his marksmanship. His demeanor and efficiency soon brought him to the attention of the New England Mafia, led by Providence’s Raymond Patriarca. In 1962, Lerner got his first taste of big-time crime.

The Plymouth Postal Robbery

As of Aug. 14, 1962, when it happened, the Great Plymouth Mail Robbery was the largest robbery ever. Though all the details aren’t known (nor will they ever be), it played out roughly as follows: George “Aggie” Agisotelis got the idea of robbing a mail truck. One specific mail truck.

Aggie had watched the truck perform its routine run from Cape Cod up to Boston. On certain days it was loaded with cash traveling from the banks on the Massachusetts South Shore to the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston. He knew just the spot to hijack the truck (which had no security) and just the guys to help him do it.

He reached out to John “Red” Kelley, a bank robber known for his precision bank jobs. They assembled a team of at least six men. Knocking off the mail truck was a breeze. One gangster, posing as a cop, flagged down the truck. The other cars then surrounded it. Gunmen held two postal employees at bay with machine guns, and the crew scooped the bags of cash – more than $1.5 million – into the waiting cars.

Maurice “Pro” Lerner probably belonged to the gang, though he was never charged. Aggie and Red were, and they got off, but only after one member of the gang disappeared – Thomas Richards. The gang didn’t think he would stand up under questioning and Lerner shot him.

Patriarca Affiliation

For several years Pro Lerner and Red Kelley formed a formidable team. Red was precise and disciplined. Pro was calm and smart. Police suspected that Red Kelley took part in planning for the Brink’s Job, but backed out when he didn’t like the way the plan shaped up.

Pro was getting more work and attention from the Patriarca crime family as his reputation for violence grew. Vincent Teresa became his contact with the family. Lerner was asked to kill two men – Rudolph Marfeo and Anthony Melei – who were interfering with Patriarca gambling operations.

Lerner recruited Red Kelley to help with the getaway planning. Raymond Patriarca was growing frustrated at the pace Kelley’s careful planning required. “I don’t want to hear any stories, I just want him [Marfeo] killed,” Patriarca said, ignoring his usual dislike for public spectacle.

Murder in Broad Daylight

So on April 20, 1968 Lerner and another gunman murdered the two bookmakers in the middle of the afternoon in Pannone’s supermarket on Pocasset Avenue in Providence. The public nature of the shooting put intense pressure on police to make arrests, and luckily they now had an edge.

Red Kelley, at age 55 and with a long criminal history, had been implicated in another robbery. Facing the prospect of a long prison term, he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. And at the top of his list of people to give up was Pro Lerner.

Maurice Lerner frightened Red Kelley. The younger Lerner, 34, was too violent. Kelley laid out exactly what happened in the shooting, right down to the route they planned for their getaway, and he was convincing. His testimony not only put away Lerner and the rest of those directly involved, it also put Raymond Patriarca behind bars.

Patriarca would be out of prison after serving a few scant years for his conspiracy conviction. But Lerner faced two life sentences for the murders. He would serve 20 years before he was even eligible for parole.

Maurice Lerner, Hit Man

About the same time that Red Kelley put Pro Lerner in prison, another member of the Patriarca crime family left the fold. Vincent Teresa, 325-pound “Fat Vinnie,” was a lieutenant in the organization. The Revere, Mass., boy rose up in the ranks of the Mafia and ran a number of operations for the mob, though he claimed he never killed anyone.

In 1966, one of Patriarca’s hit men, Joseph Barboza, had started cooperating with the federal prosecutors. Federal marshals decided to stash Barboza on Thacher Island off the coast of Gloucester. The small island with distinctive twin lighthouses is actually part of Rockport, Mass. With Barboza out of reach, Patriarca ordered Teresa to find a way to get him.

1928 police photo of Raymond Patriarca (Providence Library)

Teresa took Pro Lerner out on his yacht, The Living End, and they circled the island while marshals stood their ground on the shore armed with shotguns. Teresa and Lerner realized they had lost any element of surprise. Outnumbered, they had no chance of successfully getting a shot at Barboza. Lerner and Teresa discussed a sneak attack. Lerner could swim to the island in scuba gear and try to catch Barboza off guard, but they quickly discarded that plan as impractical.

Soon, with Lerner and Patriarcia battling murder charges, Teresa was having his own troubles. By 1969 he was making most of his money by leading gambling trips. Casinos paid him a share of the money lost by the high rollers he brought in. But Teresa also had come in contact with a man who could steal securities. Teresa helped sell the stolen stocks and bonds for a share of the profit.

Joey Barboza

Vincent Teresa Turns

When the stolen securities racket was broken up, Teresa initially kept quiet and went to prison peacefully. He began living the luxurious life in federal prison afforded to Mafiosi, rubbing shoulders with the likes of future New York Mafia don John Gotti. But soon Teresa learned some news that irritated him.

While he had done his duty and headed off to prison, he learned that other members of the Patriarca family were not playing by the rules. They had taken money (he claimed $4 million) that Teresa had stashed away for his family’s use while in prison. With that, Fat Vinnie became a government witness. And what stories he told. Fat Vinnie testified at more than a dozen trials that convicted his fellow mobsters.

Fifty-one indictments were tied to him, though he didn’t always succeed as a witness. Occasionally, his testimony didn’t add up. In 1978, he finally told his biggest shocker.

The Castro Contract

Rolling Stone Magazine got tangled up in a libel case in 1978 over an article that identified a casino as being connected to the Mafia. Teresa had to testify in the case. In a 300-page deposition, Teresa answered a question about Mafia involvement with the CIA, specifically the idea of assassinating Castro.

“I was there when the information came in for Henry (Tamaleo) and Raymond (Patriarca) and they picked Maurice (Pro) Lerner to do the work. This is the story that was told to Henry and Raymond, to whack out Fidel Castro and the man that was picked was . . . Lerner.”

Fidel Castro

Tamaleo and Patriarca were indeed mafia leaders. But was the story true? Patriarca was blunt in his denial to the Boston Herald American: “If you believe anything Teresa says you have to be crazier than he is. He hustled his mother for $2 and if you believe him, then you are crazy . . . I never knew Pro Lerner until they framed him like they framed me.”

Maurice Lerner, still serving time in jail, gave a simpler response: “The accusation isn’t true.”

So where is the truth? It’s well documented that the CIA, in the overheated days of the 60s, did reach out to the Mafia to discuss assassinating Castro. The agency hatched many plans (some of them comically absurd) to go after the Cuban dictator.

As for the CIA negotiations with the Mafia, the discussions were between Robert Maheu – the Waterville, Maine, boy who rose up to be a CIA operative and Howard Hughes’ right hand man – and Sam Giancana, the Chicago Mafia boss. And the Mafia, ousted from Cuba by Castro’s coup, certainly had no love for the dictator.

Model Prisoner

Red Kelley told one of his protectors, former U.S. Marshal John Partington, that he knew of the plan to assassinate Castro and had been approached about participating along with Maurice Lerner. But did Giancana reach out to Rhode Island and Lerner? Lerner was a significant enough underworld figure that a congressional committee investigating the assassination of President Kennedy subpoenaed and reviewed his CIA files. Still, the trail of evidence grows cold, and there were never many reliable sources in the matter to begin with.

All the parties to the story died long ago. Maurice Lerner got out of prison and led a crime-free life, detailed in a New York Times profile. The story portrayed a model prisoner who spent his final days reliving memories of his baseball career. Teresa would write three books about his Mafia life. By the end he was angry at his treatment by the government. Still, much of his insider information was valid and useful.

This story about Maurice Lerner was updated in 2023.

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The Colonial Slade Mill Starts a Spice Empire in Revere, Mass.

When David and Levi Slade went into business with their father at his Slade mill in 1837, they had an idea. In addition to grinding corn and tobacco, why not grind spices – which were mainly sold in bulk and had to be processed at home?

The boys ground a test batch – a half a barrel of cinnamon – and carried it to the markets in Boston. Turned out people liked the labor saving convenience of having spices preground and delivered in small amounts, and the Slades were in a new business.

David and Levi came to the spice business via their father Henry. The Slade’s Mill was on the border of Chelsea and Revere, and it was the surviving portion of the original mill built in 1735 at the request of the citizens of Chelsea. Over the years, the mill changed hands several times and was destroyed by fire, but it always fulfilled its initial mission of standing ready to grind the corn of any citizen of Chelsea. In exchange for grinding the corn, the mill owner received a “Miller’s Dole” – a percentage of the corn he ground.

The Slade Mill

The mill was one of several tide mills dotting the New England coast – an innovation that some say originated in the area. Tide mills worked by using a set of flood gates. When the tide surged in, the flood gates swung open to allow the ocean water to fill the marsh and mill pond. When the tide turned and began to exit the marsh, the gates closed, trapping the water. From this impounded water the mill drew off a steady stream to turn its machinery – similar to the way a mill on a river used the flow to drive its works.

David Slade

In 1775 the mill provided a footnote to the American Revolution. One of the earliest naval engagements of the war took place near the mill, and its gates prevented the British from sailing up Mill Creek and coming within firing range of Chelsea.

Henry Slade had bought into the mill in 1827, and the innovation introduced in his time was the grinding of tobacco into snuff to supplement corn. As Henry’s children David, Levi and Charles took an interest in the business, they – especially David – wanted to let their new ideas and ambition increase the business.

For one year, Henry turned the mill over to the hard-working David, who increased the mill’s profits to $500 until the older generation stepped back in. But soon David took charge again, creating the D & L Slade Co. with brother Levi. It would for more than 100 years turn out spices for New England home and professional kitchens.

Counterfeiting

In popularizing the grinding of spices, Slade actually introduced into the spice trade an expanded opportunity for crooks to begin selling fake spices. Counterfeiting was long a problem with spices, as the legend of the Connecticut nutmeg highlights, because they commanded such handsome prices.

Spices already ground afforded counterfeiters an easier way to profit. Rather than having to fake an actual spice, the counterfeiters could simply adulterate the spice with a filler or other substance when they processed it and boost profits this way.

Slade, with his insistence on purity, turned this practice to his advantage. He used the dependability of his mill and his family’s reputation for honesty as a marketing tool to set the company apart from competitors. From 1850 to the mid-1900s Slade became the largest spice company in New England with trading partners around the world and a factory and offices in Boston.

And Then, Bell’s

In 1918 Slade would make the investment that keeps its legacy alive today. It bought out the Bell’s Seasoning Company. In 1867, William Bell had begun selling his blend of poultry seasoning through his market in Boston. Bell had started as a grocer in Lowell, Mass. before moving south to Boston where he could buy spices directly off the ships arriving in port.

Over the next 40 years Bell continually expanded the popularity of his Bell’s Seasoning – a blend of rosemary, ginger, oregano, sage and marjoram – until his sudden death at age 76. Sensing opportunity, Slade purchased the brand, but wisely did nothing to change the name or formula. Instead, he incorporated Bell’s into his own lineup, which had expanded to baking powders, cumin, pepper and a wide range of spices. The company promoted them in its own cookbook.

The Slade name finally disappeared from the grocery shelves in the 1970s when the Slade family sold the company. Only the Bell’s brand name remains today – touted by a wide range of cooks as still the best poultry seasoning for a Thanksgiving turkey.

The Slade Mill, though, still lives on. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, its owners converted it to apartments in 2004.

Hat tip to: The Spice Mill on the Marsh by Thomas P. Smith. This story was updated in 2022.

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Maurice Prendergast Paints New England at Play

The much-loved American artist Maurice Prendergast once wrote in his notebook,

Art is the great stimulus of life -I find it year by year more rich, more desirable, and more mysterious.

Revere Beach, ca. 1896. Private collection.

He found much richness outdoors in New England, especially during the summertime.

His art featured familiar scenes of parks and beaches, holidays, festivals and picnics. But his paintings resembled delicate mosaics more than the representational art then popular in the United States.

Marblehead, ca. 1914-15. Courtesy of the Williams College Museum of Art.

Maurice Prendergast was one of the first American painters to paint in a manner inspired by the French Post-Impressionists like Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat and Paul Cezanne.

Maurice Prendergast

He and his twin sister Lucy were born in a subarctic trading post in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Oct. 10, 1858. (Perhaps that’s why light and summer attracted him so.) The trading post failed and the family moved to Boston’s South End. He then left school at 14. Prendergast was apprenticed to a commercial artist who painted show cards – advertising point-of-sale displays. By the time he reached 24, he could support himself painting flat, colorful advertisements — much the way his art would look.

Boston, Snowy Day. ca. 1910. Private collection.

His brother Charles, an artist with whom he was close, said he always knew he wanted to be an artist and he didn’t let anything get in his way. Back then, one generally studied in Europe if one wanted to pursue art. The brothers in 1886 worked their way to England on a cattle boat.

Nantasket Beach, ca. 1896. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Maurice then saved enough money to go to Paris, where he studied for four years. He was exposed to James McNeill Whistler, Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Edgar Degas and Claude Manet.

When he returned to Boston in 1895 he had some modest success. By 1897 he acquired patrons who sent him to Italy to work for several years. But he suffered from poor health, and he’d lost nearly all his hearing by the time he returned home.

Maine Beach, ca. 1913. Private collection.

Back in New England, he painted in watercolor on the coast in summer, then recast his work in oil in the winter. He especially liked Revere Beach, Marblehead, the South Boston Pier and the Boston Public Garden.

Salem Willows, ca. 1904. Terra Museum of American Art.

His naïve, cheerful paintings sold well, and he began to exhibit in New York to find a wider audience. But not everyone liked his work.

Autumn in New England, ca. 1913, Private collection.

The Eight

In 1908 he exhibited with a renegade group of artists called The Eight. One critic dismissed his paintings as ‘artistic tommy-rot, unadulterated slop, the show would be better if it were that of The Seven rather than The Eight.’ Another compared his work with ‘an explosion in a color factory.’

Merry Go Round Nahant, ca. 1901. Springfield Museum of Fine Arts.

Eventually he moved to New York City, where he often painted Central Park scenes. He continued to work in New England in the summers.

Low Tide at Beachmont, ca. 1905, Worcester Art Museum.

Maurice Prendergast died on Feb. 1, 1924.

This story was updated in 2022.

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Conversation Hearts, A Sweet Story

Centuries before a Cambridge, Mass., candy company started making conversation hearts in 1901, British men and women exchanged ‘kissing comfits’ to sweeten the breath and perhaps ask for a kiss.

In the late 16^th century, William Shakespeare mentions kissing comfits in The Merry Wives of Windsor (‘hail kissing-comfits and snow eryngoes,’ says Falstaff).

A Boston candy maker started making them around 1866, and didn’t stop for well over a century. Then, for a brief time, the conversation heart went the way of most U.S. manufacturing and disappeared.

But the story has a happy ending.

Conversation Hearts History

They were made of sugar paste with musk, civet, ambergris and orris powder and pressed into molds that had mottos on them, according to Laura Mason in Sugar-Plums and Sherbet: The Prehistory of Sweets. Sometimes candy makers printed mottos on paper and inserted them into the sugar paste. The writing then migrated onto the sugar paste. Messages on Victorian “conversation lozenges” were stamped on with dye. “How do you flirt” and “Can you polka?” were some of the racier mottos. Temperance messages like “Take Ye Not To Strong Drink” and “Honour Your Parents” also had their fans, probably from a different crowd.

Yankee cuisine typically took its cue from Great Britain, and candy was no exception. In 1847, Boston pharmacist Oliver Chase invented the first candy machine to cut lozenges from sugar paste. The lozenges, similar to Necco Wafers, were originally called “Hub Wafers,” because they were made in Boston.

In 1866, Oliver’s brother Daniel began to print witty messages on the candy with vegetable dye. People loved them at weddings, where they had such sayings as ‘Married in pink, he will take a drink.’ And “Married in White, you have chosen right.”

Their company became the New England Confectionery Company, or Necco, after a merger with two other candy companies in 1901. That year they started making heart-shaped candies with messages printed on them. (They also made conversation candies in other shapes: lozenges, horseshoes, baseballs and postcards.)

The heart-shaped ‘Sweetheart’ conversation hearts took off. Seven years after they were introduced, they appeared in the Canadian novel Anne of Green Gables, when Anne receives a pink Sweetheart saying “You are sweet.”

Necco

Necco moved to a new candy factory – the largest in the world — in Cambridge in 1927. The move heralded the golden era of candy making in Greater Boston. In 1950, Boston and Cambridge, Mass., had 140 candy companies. Main Street in Cambridge, known as ‘Confectioner’s Row,’ was lined with candy makers: James O. Welch (Junior Mints), Fox-Cross (Charleston Chew), Jack Smiley (hard candies), Graylock Confection (Tweet) and Daggett (chocolates).

SONY DSC

Most of those factories have since left. Necco’s candy making moved again to Revere, Mass., in 2003. Necco made a claim as the oldest continually operating candy company in the United States. The company made nearly 8 billion of the hearts each year from late February through mid-January of the following year.

But the sayings changed, updated to reflect the times. Gone are HEP CAT, HOTCHA, SAUCY BOY and OH YOU KID. Still around are: SAY YES, BE MINE and KISS ME.

Then in 2018, Necco shuttered its plant. Candy lovers had a brief respite when an investment firm bought the company. But soon after, the new owner shut the plant and fired all the employees.

Another company, the Spangler Candy Company, picked up the Necco wafers and Sweethearts candy lines. Valentine’s Day in 2019 and 2020 went Sweetheart-less because of problems moving equipment. Then in 2021, Sweethearts reappeared on store shelves.

As one saying goes, PURR FECT.

This story was updated in 2023. You may enjoy a related story about candy in New England here.

Images: LOL By Pschemp – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3561363. Sweethearts box By photo taken by Evan-Amos, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31410788.

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Horatio Alger and the 100-Year-Old Guilty Secret

Horatio Alger wrote rags-to-riches stories about poor boys who succeed through hard work, often helped by a wealthy benefactor with a guilty secret. He had his own guilty secret.

Horatio Alger in 1852

Alger is often believed to have patterned his earnest young characters after himself.

Actually, it was the wealthy benefactors he was writing about.

Horatio Alger’ s guilty secret stayed secret for more than a century. The First Unitarian Parish of Brewster, Mass., kicked him out of his job as a minister for sexual misconduct with boys.

The Eligible Parson

Horatio Alger was born on Jan. 13, 1832, in Chelsea (now Revere), Mass. Both his parents came from old New England families, but he was hardly aristocratic and certainly not rich. His father, Horatio Alger, Sr., was a minister who wanted his son to pursue the same career.

Horatio Alger, Jr., entered Harvard at 16 and graduated eighth in a class of 88. He tried to make a living at writing, but he couldn’t support himself and reluctantly entered Harvard Divinity School. In 1864 he was installed as pastor at the Brewster church. He threw himself into his work, delivering vigorous sermons and involving himself in all aspects of parish life. He was especially passionate about organizing games and excursions for the boys’ groups.

Parishioners noticed he was ‘always with the boys.’ They also wondered why he didn’t court the parish’s eligible young woman. He was 32, single, and something of a catch.

Ragged Dick

They began to ask why, and finally investigated him through a committee made up of the church’s male lay officers. Parish records made public in the 1970s revealed Horatio Alger and the boys had engaged in acts ‘too revolting to relate.’ The report named two young boys and hinted at others.

The committee called Alger on the carpet, and he denied nothing. He admitted to ‘imprudence.’ Then he left Brewster that evening, never to return. The parish notified other Massachusetts parishes about his dismissal without disclosing the reason. But it did report to the church hierarchy his crime: ‘the abominable and revolting crime of gross familiarity with boys.’

First Parish Church of Brewster

Atonement

Alger moved to New York City and wrote Ragged Dick, his all-time best seller. Published serially in 1867, it told of an honest 14-year-old bootblack who rescues a drowning child.. The boy receives a reward for his good deed: a new suit and a job.

He won lasting fame with stories about honest poor boys outwitting evil.

At the same time, it seems, he tried to atone for his sin and repress his sexual urges. He supported the Newsboys’ Lodging House, which fed and sheltered poor newsboys.

Horatio Alger later in life

But he also informally “adopted” two street boys who lived with him in his apartment.

During his lifetime he published about a hundred volumes of fiction and poetry. His books faded in popularity toward the end of his life, but enjoyed a resurgence after his death.

Horatio Alger died on July 18, 1899 in Natick, Mass.

With thanks to The New Encyclopedia of American Scandal by George C. Kohn. This story was updated in 2023. Image of First Parish Church in Brewster By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10568077

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