The Scalpone Story

    This all began in Contursi (SA), Italy, with a man named Salvatore Scalpone. Born probably
    about 1780/85, he married Donata Pirchio in 1809. They had two (or more) sons in the early |
    part of the nineteenth century: Francesco (B. 1819) and Nicola (B. 1821).

    Nicola fathered Alfonso (B. 1853), from whom the New York line descended. Francesco
    fathered Lorenzo (B. 1846) and Vito Antonio (B. 1847).

    Contursi today has three or four thousand people. It's a little town, not very charming, I'm
    afraid, high on a hill about 60 miles inland from Naples. There are no Scalpones there now.
     Its claim to fame is its sulphur baths, recorded as far back as a 1900 Baedeker tourist guide
     I have. In those days, the railway from Naples to Brindisi let you off fairly close but on the
     plain near the river Sele. From there you had to take a "diligence"--a sort of stagecoach,
     which met the train and wended its way north, up the hill.

     Click here for a brief history of Contursi and some modern-day photos.

     There are two branches of Scalpones in the U. S. and one in Italy. Let’s call one American
      branch the New York group, the other the Chicago group, based on their starting point in
      this country. The Italian branch we’ll call the Romans, since Rome is now their home.
      Although there has apparently been no contact among the groups until recently, it is clear
      that they are closely related: in fact, it’s pretty certain that every person bearing the Scalpone
      name is some kind of close cousin to every other.

      On the family tree, there are 408 names, all Scalpones or spouses or their descendants.

      It is not too early in this narrative to point out that there must be numerous other blood relations
      out there, descendants of females who took their husbands’ names and are now extremely
      difficult to trace.

   Vito Antonio’s Family

     Let's first consider Vito Antonio, one of Francesco's sons and a grandson of founder
     Salvatore. I  have no record of any of Vito's descendants turning up in the U. S. He had
     four children, Ermalinda, Giulia, Orazio, and Carmella, between the years 1876 and 1886.
     Apparently they all remained in Italy and although there are most likely numerous
     descendants of Vito, it seems that none with the Scalpone name survive in either the U. S.
     or  Contursi. Guglielmo and his father Antonio have been very helpful in the reconstruction
     of the early days of the Scalpones in Contursi

    Lorenzo’s Family

     Lorenzo was Vito Antonio's elder brother. He too remained in Italy.
     He fathered two daughters, Cesaria and Maria Grazia, and a son,
     Angelo Raffaele (B. 1873). In 1895 Angelo married Erminia di Nobile,
     who fathered Guglielmo (B. ), who in turn fathered Antonio (B. 1927).
     Antonio was born in Contursi, as was his wife Adele (B. 1935). They
     live today in Rome and have three children, Raffaele (B. 1964);
     Guglielmo (B. 1966); and Rosangela (B. 1968).

 

The Scalpone family of Rome (l to r): Raffaele, the elder son (his
wife Patrizia is obscured to his left); Antonio and Adele (father
and mother); visitors Frank Scalpone and Don Jesuele; Guglielmo,
 the younger son; Rosangela, the daughter, with her husband
Salvatore Fuscaldi. [Frank, compiler of this site, and Don,
 

 

Salvatore and His Son Antonio: the Chicago Group

 So far I have been unable to place Salvatore (B. 1850-1855) with certainty on the tree, but it is most likely
 that he was another son of either Francesco or Nicola.  We know that he was from Contursi, married Angela
 Tonsole, and had five children: Antonio (B. 1881), Francesco (B. 1882), Maria Olivia di Vita B. 1883), Maria
 Grazia (B. 1885), and Concetta (B. 1888). Salvatore seems to have remained in Italy,  and I have no record
 of Francesco's activities. Just as with Vito's daughters, it is  almost impossible for me to trace the girls' descendants.

 But Antonio eventually came to the U. S., arriving at Ellis Island in 1903. Before he did,  he married a woman
 whose name is unknown to me or his American descendants,  and had a daughter, similarly unknown. In 1903,
 Ellis Island records show his arrival  in the United States.  Then, in 1906/7 (he was 29 years old) he went back to
 Italy and remarried-- almost  certainly because of the death of his first wife, divorce being unknown in that time
 and  place. His new bride was Candida Cozzi, born 1881 in Senerchia, about seven miles north of Contursi, an
 even smaller town higher up the mountain. Today, Senerchia has a population of 1100, and is even less
 prepossessing than Contursi. There are no Scalpones there, either. But there are Cozzis.
  
                  Note:   Considerable research has been and is being done on the Cozzi's by a Cozzi descendant
                  who happens to be a professional genealogist:  Denise Wells. Anything you know that would add
                  to Denise's research on the Cozzi's would be welcomed by her at:  dawells@aol.com or
                  at countycavan@aol.com.

 The first two children of Antonio and Candida died at birth. Four other children survived: Salvatore (B. 1912), Joseph
 (B. 1914), Letizia (B. 1917), and Gerald (B. 1925). Salvatore married Ruth Novi (B. 1911) but had no children. Joseph
 married Estelle Hlavaty (1917-1980) and had two children, Richard and Charles. Letizia died at the age of 8. Gerald
 (Jerry), born in 1925,  continues to thrive and is now the patriarch of the Chicago group.

 

 

Mark Scalpone, Candy & Gregg Fenske, Fran and Charles (Chuck) Scalpone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                    Jerry married Frances Rossi (B. 1928) in 1946, and they have three children:
                                                                   Gerald II, Candice, and Mark. Two of the three children each had three children
                                                                   of their own, and two of these children in their turn have a total of four children.
                                                                   I count 29 living members of this Chicago group, still centered around the Great
                                                                   Lakes with one or two exceptions.

                

 Alfonso and the New York group  

Alfonso Scalpone, son of Nicola and nephew of Francesco, was like them born in Contursi, in 1853.
He married Carmela Manzione in the early 1870's. Carmela is said to have been born in France,
although the Manzione name still survives in Contursi.

 They had four children in Contursi: Nicola (B. 1875), Rachaele (Katie) (B. 1877), Salvatore (B. 1880),
and Raffaela (Rose) (B. 1886) [Bear in mind that the uneven gaps between children are not explained
 by fits of abstinence on the part of the father; infant death was very common in that place and time.]
 In 1884 a terrible cholera epidemic had hit the Naples area, making living even more precarious than
usual. Anyway, in 1887, Alfonso decided to emigrate to New York Once there, they had three more
children: Joseph (B. 1888), Adalena (Lena) (B. 1891), and Filomina (Minnie) (B. 1893).

             
                 Photo Break: The Lower East Side     Alfonso and Carmela settled on Baxter Street
                  on New York's crowded Lower East Side, just a block from better-known Mulberry Street.
                 Baxter Street was notorious:  Bottle Alley, off Baxter, was he site of 20 murders and was
                 called the "wickedest" and "foulest spot in all the city."  The Bottle Alley Gang was based
                 at 43 Baxter. Danny Driscoll, the famous criminal eventually hanged, lived on Baxter.The
                 area in the 1870's and 80's was mixed, with many Germans, Jews, Chinese and some blacks
                 dwelling there, along with the Irish and Italians. But the Italian migrants became the large
                 majority in that area during the last decades of the century, and the section earned the name
                 Little Italy. Today, most of the Italians have re-located and Chinatown has enlarged to take
                 over the area. Here are a few pictures from the Little Italy period (for many more, see
                 www.authentichistory.com/images/postcivilwar/jacob_riis/contents/html). The photos are
                 from Jacob Riis's famous How the Other Half Lives (1890), as is the quotation above.


     
                            Hester Street, Lower East Side                                                                 

 


 Room in a tenement. Toilets came in about 1905; until then there were only
 outhouses. Bathing took place in the kitchen. Cold water was provided, but
tenants had to heat water on their coal stoves. Most floors held four units.

 

                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                A Baxter Street alley. Alfonso's family lived
                                                                                                                                     on this street.
                                                                                                                                     

 

To continue:

Salvatore married Felicine Fosco in 1909,  but the young couple were murdered in 1910. When she died,
Felicine was pregnant with what would have been their first child. [Read the dramatic details in the link
Murder in the Family.}

The other six children all married and bore children of their own; and today we count about 140 blood
descendants in this group:
 

Nick had seven children, one of whom, Salvatore, lives on in Springfield, Massachusetts.         
Katie, the next, had five children, one of whom, Helen, lives on in Little Ferry, New Jersey. Rose
 had two children, Ralph and Mildred.  Joseph had five children, two of whom, Joe Dave (Florida),
 born in 1916, and Francis (Frank--Antioch, California) live on. Lena had two children.
 And Minnie had three children, one of whom, Rose (born in 1913) lives on in Eugene, Oregon.

At this point, the tree becomes so crowded that it is unproductive to describe in narrative form.
All the information we have, however, is detailed in the tree that follows and on individual pages.

 

                                                                            

 Photo Break

 

 

                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                  

Descendants of Nicolo's son Ralph, these
cousins assembled in 1980: bottom row,
Laura, Lisa (holding Travis), top row,
Dennis Jr., Bonnie (holding Nicole), and Scott.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


At Sal Scalpone's 90th birthday party (2003):  (top) Ronnie Scaglione, Dennis Scalpone, Phyllis Scalpone Ascione, Sal Scalpone, & Joe
Scaglione; (bottom) Dennis's wife Pat, Neil Ascione, and Ronnie's wife Christa.

                                                   

 

                                                

 From about 1924, a group of the New York Scalpones: (top row) Emma Sica; her mother Rachaele (Katie) S.; one unknown; Charles
 De Socio; Filomena (Minnie) S. Forziati, Elinor Mingalone S., Charles Sica.  (Middle row) Raffaela (Rose) S. Yandoli; her son Ralph;  Ida Sica;
Mamie Sica; and Joseph S.  (Children) Edna S. (?) behind Rose's knee; one unknown; Carmella (Millie) Yandoli; Helen Sica; Rose
Forziati; Joe Dave S.; and Ernest Forziati. 

 

 



            From the mid-50's, a Jesuele/Yandoli gathering from the New York line:  op row, Mildred Yandoli Bender, Lena
            Scalpone Jesuele, Connie Young Jesuele, Rose Scalpone Yandoli; bottom row, Joan Jesuele Angley, Nancy Jesuele
                                                       Hazelgrove, Ann Schmalz Jesuele, Leonard Jesuele I.

 

 

 

 

 

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