March 17, 1908
July 11, 1984

Mobster

Some considered Raymond Patriarca to be a fair and “polished” mobster. Others found him to be cruel. No one argues that he ruled New England’s underworld for decades and enjoyed ties to the national crime syndicate.

A Mafioso on the move

Raymond Salvatore Loreda Patriarca was born on Saint Patrick’s Day (March 17), 1908, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Three years later, his family moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where his father ran a liquor store. Patriarca left school at the age of eight to work as a shoeshine boy and bellhop. Nothing about his childhood stood out—until 1925, when the seventeen-year-old Patriarca lost his father. He turned to crime and never reversed his path.

The same year his father died, Patriarca was arrested for breaking Prohibition laws (laws forbidding the manufacture, sale, or transfer of alcoholic beverages) in Connecticut...