Cornelius Wines grew up in South Carolina with his siblings and widowed father Andrew, who supported the family as a station hand with the railroad. As a teenager, Cornelius labored in a brickyard. He then met and married Constance Timmons in 1917 when he was 26 years old.

The couple settled on Maple Avenue in Montclair, New Jersey, where Cornelius found work as a wagon driver. They later relocated to North Main Street in Waterbury, Connecticut. There, they raised their four children – Mary, Constance, Cornelius and Virginia.

In 1930, Cornelius was employed as a truck driver for the Byrolley Transportation Company. On Oct. 6, he set out to drive several boxes of silver from precious metal processors Handy & Harmon in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to silversmiths in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. While proceeding slowly up a hill in South Killingly, a group of strange men suddenly jumped into the truck. Cornelius was forcibly removed from the driver’s seat while one of the men took the wheel.

After blindfolding him, they took the truck up a deserted dirt road. When they stopped, they removed him from the vehicle, tied a cloth around his mouth and secured him to the front bumper.

The men went through the truck, locating all the silver and quickly packing it into several vehicles they had secreted in the vicinity. Soon, Cornelius heard the vehicles drive away with about $7,000 worth of loot.

It took nearly an hour, but Cornelius was able to free himself from his restraints. He made his way to the police station, where he described all that had just happened. By the next morning, three of the robbers and most of the silver had been located.

Police received a tip that some unidentified men were sneaking around outside a summer cottage situated on Shawomet Beach. They ventured out to the location and surrounded the small abode. Soon, a foot chase ensued as two men climbed through a window at the back of the cottage and ran. They were quickly captured and identified, as was the man who was still inside.

Anthony Peters and Joseph Cardoza were both 28-year-old men from Providence. Mario Ferraiolo, another Providence resident, was 25 years old. Inside the cottage they had hidden 17 bars and two boxes of silver under mattresses and inside an ice chest. Upon the boxes were the labels of “Handy & Harmon.” The three men waived extradition and were arraigned on charges of robbery with violence.

By December, another man had been implicated in the crime. Forty-three-year-old Harry Abrams of Rhode Island was in the process of being extradited back to Connecticut. He already had a lengthy criminal history. He had done time in Sing Sing Prison in New York in 1918. In 1923, he had been arrested for holding up employees of the Guarantee Loan Company in Rhode Island where the robbers made off with almost $600. In 1925, he was serving time in Rhode Island State Prison. By 1940, he would be an inmate at Connecticut State Prison.

Cornelius undoubtedly felt lucky he had survived the hold-up that fall day in 1930 and returned home to his wife and children believing he had his whole life ahead of him. Unfortunately, he died in Springfield, Massachusetts, just three years later at the age of 42.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.