Joseph Duffy was born on August 11, 1889 in Montrose, California, to Frank J. Duffy and Mabel E. Brown. He married Anne Savage, and the couple moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. They had one son, Frederick Duffy, who was 18 in April 1935. Anne died of pneumonia on September 9, 1917, in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
Mr. Duffy entered the Massachusetts State Prison on April 2, 1935. Authorities transferred him to the Norfolk Prison Camp on November 26, 1935. He died suddenly on September 8, 1936, at the Norfolk Prison Camp. He was 47.
