Historical Figures You’ll Meet in “What Once Was Promised”

Gaspare Messina

Born: 1887, Salemi, Sicily
Died: 1957, Somerville, Massachusetts
First Head of the Boston Mafia 1918
Named Capo Di Tutti Capi,
“Boss of All Bosses,” in 1930

Joseph Lombardo

Born: circa 1897, Salemi, Sicily
Died: July 17, 1969
Messina’s unofficial successor
Famous for murdering
three members of
the Irish Gustin Gang in 1931

James Michael Curley

Born November 20, 1874, Boston
Died November 12, 1958, Boston
Mayor of Boston 1914-1918, 1922-1926, 1930-1934, 1946-1950
Governor of Massachusetts 1935-1937
United State Congressman 1911-1914, 1942-1947
Served two prison sentences

Leverett Saltonstall

(September 1, 1892 – June 17, 1979)
Served three two-year terms as the 55th
Governor of Massachusetts, and for more than twenty years as a United States senator (1945–1967).

William Henry O'Connell

(December 8, 1859 – April 22, 1944)
He served as Archbishop of Boston from 1907 until his death in 1944, and was made a cardinal in 1911.

Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Was born in 1888 in Villafalletto, Italy. As an immigrant anarchist, he was at the center of one of the most notorious legal cases of the twentieth century, along with Nicola Sacco, that highlighted American anti-immigrant and anti-radical sentiment during the Red Scare. He was executed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on August 23, 1927.