Edward Francis Harrington, age 91, of Tiverton, RI, formerly of Fall River, MA and Needham, MA, passed away, Friday, March 7, 2025 at Rhode Island Hospital. He was married to the late Ellen Erisman Harrington for 57 years. They were the parents of six children. Ted was a retired Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and former U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.
Ted was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, the son of the late John J. and Elizabeth (Tolan) Harrington, and brother of the late Dr. John T. and Dr. Daniel T. Harrington. He spent his youth in Fall River, MA and at the Hummocks, Portsmouth, RI. He claimed that he had the best childhood, growing up in a double decker with his grandparents and three aunts residing upstairs above his family. Living with many teachers, someone was always available to read to him or talk to him. His love of reading, learning, and listening to “the chatter” was instilled early. He was incessantly curious, and his Irish American neighborhood and parish provided him “marvelous” opportunities to develop interests in sports, politics, movies, and big band music. He found the world delightfull. While his brothers were his lifelong best friends, he made friends from every stage of life starting in grade school.
He graduated from Sacred Heart Grammar School in 1947, and then from B.M.C. Durfee High School in 1951. His father, J.J., a beloved teacher at Durfee and the only assistant coach who could work with the infamous Luke Urban, provided an entree for Ted to be on some celebrated Durfee teams. Ted played baseball in the Tech Tourney at Boston Garden, baseball at Fenway Park, and football at “The Stadium” in New Bedford. In later years, he often playfully exaggerated his role on those teams.
He graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from College of the Holy Cross in 1955 and a Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School in 1960. He credits Holy Cross with providing him an excellent education with the required “Ratio Studiorum” curriculum. Despite rigorous courses in philosophy, theology and other classical disciplines, he had time for the school newspaper and friendships. Later, he regaled his family with stories of some remarkable athletes he cheered for during those years. Tommy Heinsohn was a classmate and friend. Ted was a member of the Naval ROTC. He began his career in public service in the United States Navy, and served on active duty from 1955 to 1957 on destroyer escorts as the Lieutenant (jg) Gunnery Officer. He was in the U.S. Navy Reserve from 1957 to 1972. He thoroughly enjoyed his Navy days, and specifically treasured the memory of seeing Ernest Hemingway salute him and his fellow sailors from Hemingway’s yacht in the waters outside Havana.
As luck would have it, his ship demanded significant repairs and was docked in the Philadelphia shipyard for months. This provided him the opportunity to travel regularly by train to NYC to date Ellen, a young woman he had met on a blind date in May of his senior year at Holy Cross. He was smitten, and they were married two years later, just months before he began law school at Boston College. He promised her an exciting life. He saved all the letters she penned during those two years and read those notes during the ten years following her death. He could hear her voice telling him about her days and plans.
Upon graduating from BC Law, he was a law clerk to Chief Justice Paul C. Reardon of the Massachusetts Superior Court. Camelot soon beckoned, and Ted and Ellen moved to Washington DC with the sense of new beginnings with personal and national optimism. He joined the Justice Department as a trial attorney in the Criminal Division in the United States Department of Justice. While at Main Justice, Harrington was a member of the special prosecution group conducting the nationwide probe of racketeering in the Teamsters Union as one of the fifteen members of Robert F. Kennedy's so-called "Hoffa Squad.” During the so-called "long hot summer of 1964," Harrington was a member of a select team of attorneys dispatched to the Mississippi by Attorney General Robert Kennedy to protect the civil rights workers who were conducting "freedom schools" in voter registration there.
In 1965, he then became an assistant United States attorney for the District of Massachusetts. In that capacity, he participated in the successful prosecution and appeal of Raymond L. S. Patriarca, the alleged boss of the New England organized crime family. The chief government witness in the case was one of the first organized crime figures to break the "code of silence." The security procedures used to protect accomplice witnesses became the basis for the Witness Protection Program. Ted found his work invigorating and meaningful.
In 1969, Harrington became the Deputy Attorney, and in 1970, the Attorney in Charge of the newly created U.S. Department of Justice's Strike Force against Organized Crime for the New England area. During this period, major gangland accomplice witnesses were developed.
He and Ellen then settled in Needham where their house on Great Plain Ave was open to all his childrens’ friends. He traveled by train to Boston and was home most evenings to share family dinner. He was efficient in his tasks, clearing his desk and answering all phone calls by the end of each day. He and Ellen made a great team–her competence allowed him to focus and engage. Around this time, they had purchased a small cottage at the Hummocks on the banks of the Sakonnet River, so that his kids could enjoy unstructured summer days surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. There, he spent his summer vacations, swimming, reading, and talking with his parents most evenings on their screened porch. He had an easy relationship with his parents, brothers, and their families.
While Ted was in private practice in Boston in 1974, he ran as an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for Attorney General of Massachusetts. Despite this setback, in 1977 Harrington was appointed by President Carter as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Harrington left the U.S. Attorney's Office in November 1981, and entered the private practice of law with Sheridan, Garrahan and Lander with offices in Framingham, Massachusetts, where he was engaged in trial practice.
Harrington was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He was confirmed by the United States Senate and received his commission in 1988. His long-term administrative assistant, Dottie Driscoll, loyally followed him from the U.S. Attorney’s office when he was an assistant to the U.S. District Federal Court. They worked together for thirty-one years. Ted was proud of his years on the bench where he had terrific colleagues whom he respected and “the best clerks” any judge could wish for. He was grateful for the friendships that he developed with his clerks, which extended until the very end of his life. He and his clerks met monthly over zoom to discuss a book of his choosing (often Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Johnson), or to watch a favorite film noir. He had great respect for Orson Welles and particularly liked William Holden and Edward G. Robinson. He would cry whenever he saw Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights.”
After he received the College of the Holy Cross’ Edward Bennett Williams ‘41 Lifetime Achievement Award, Harrington credited Samuel Johnson’s injunction to “read biography” for influencing his own reading habit. He recognized that reading biographies allowed him to “see how other people have managed the trials, the triumphs, the tribulations of life.” As a result, Ted read biographies regularly as he saw them as a guide and a means for continuing his own education. He identified “Vanity Fair” as the novel that impacted him the most at the time he read it. As a satire and social criticism, this novel determined his respect for the power of literature. He carried a book with him wherever he went. He was a proud member of the Boston Athenaeum and the Redwood Library and Atheneum for years. He went to the library at least once a week throughout his entire life. He credited his clerks with teaching and humoring him, and he was proud of their personal and professional accomplishments. He was honored to share in their joyous occasions. All of his clerks remember him as a man of integrity, humor, phenomenal memory, and knowledgeable on many topics besides the law.
He assumed senior status on March 1, 2001. In 2012, he took two years leave to care for Ellen to the best of his ability. After her death, he returned to the Federal court to perform mediation. Throughout the COVID 19 pandemic, he continued mediation by Zoom. He credits Tracy McLaughlin and the Court for assisting him. He enjoyed those days of preparing for and then mediating because his mind was active and engaged and he felt that he was contributing. He continued to attend Court functions and enjoyed socializing with his colleagues. He was confident in who he was and in what he believed. He retired from the Court at age 90 in September 2023.
He was a presence in all of his grandchildren’s lives–attending their sacramental celebrations from baptisms to weddings. He loved his family’s annual tradition of the “Olympics” at the Hummocks. He made an effort to attend his grandchildren’s high school graduations, and was thrilled to return to Worcester in 2022 to see his granddaughter Jackie graduate from The College of The Holy Cross. His greatest joys were visits or calls from any of his children or grandchildren, an outing with an old friend, a trip to the library or sitting at the beach with a book. While never carrying a cell phone, when home, he loved to call with the greeting, “What’s new?”
He proudly was only one of seven individuals who served as both U.S. Attorney and U.S. District judge for the District of Massachusetts since its establishment in 1789.
He and Ellen were the parents of six children: John M. Harrington and his wife Joanne of Needham, Mary E. Power and husband James of Little Compton, RI, Katherine H. Pershing and husband James of Cohasset, Elizabeth H. Carroll and husband John of Portsmouth, RI, Edward P. Harrington and wife Sarah of Braintree, and the late William T. Harrington and wife Janette of Hingham, 23 grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. He leaves behind four in-laws: Ann Garrahan, Sister Katie Erisman M.M., George Psychas, and Louise Harrington. Those who survive him will have to “play it by ear” as they navigate this time without his larger-than-life personality. He is reunited with his beloved wife, Ellen and cherished son, Bill. His faith sustained him. Ted loved big band music, and it seems fitting to mention two favorites as we go on this “Sentimental Journey” (Les Brown) remembering a man who was “So Rare” (Tommy Dorsey). Ted believed that, “you can’t do much by yourself. And so, you have to pay back. I think the greatest joy, it seems a cliche to say, but it is, the great joy you get in life is to serve others, if you can help other people. First of all, your family. Help them. And then other people.” Ted was grateful for the generosity of others and how people cared for him throughout his life.
“What is truly important in life comes not from public causes, but from private causes of the soul- a devotion to the permanent things, family, friends and faith and a worthy task to spend the day.” - EFH inspired by Evelyn Waugh.
AMDG
His Funeral Mass will be held Friday, March 14, 2025 at 10:30 AM at St. Joseph Church, 1382 Highland Ave Needham, MA. Visiting hours Thursday, March 13 from 4:00 to 8:00PM in the GEORGE F. DOHERTY & SONS FUNERAL HOME, 1305 Highland Ave. Needham. Visiting hours will also be held on Saturday, March 15, 2025 from 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM at the WARING-SULLIVAN Birchcrest, 189 Gardners Neck Road, Sweansea, MA 02777, followed by burial in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Fall River. Contributions in his honor may be made to Maryknoll Sisters, P.O. Box 317, Maryknoll, New York, 10545 or the William T. Harrington Scholarship Fund, 174 Hollis Ave, Braintree, MA, 02184.