Rocco
Amador County Gold County Pioneer 1821-1904

Chapter 1

Document Owners: Caminetti and Giusto families (S.F.I., C.J.N., J.C.I., P.C.H., K.A.I., M.J.I. D.I.S.). This series of articles or its contents (as handed down through the family, edited and enhanced with some references by Dr. Illum) may not be reproduced or distributed in any form, may not be quoted or paraphrased, may not be sold or published by anyone except by designated family members above or their children. Questions may be addressed by: Dr. Steven F. Illum, 4826 South Farm Road 141, Springfield, Missouri 65810, U.S.A.

Link to Rocco's Family Tree

Roche Caminetti, who would ever after be called Rocco, was born in Calabria in 1821. Calabria is on the Italian mainland at the "tow of the boot", separated from the Island of Cicily only by the very narrow Straits of Messina (2.5 miles wide). Because they were so close geographically, Calabria and Cicily intermittently and since the year 1130 and, until forty years after Rocco's birth, were considered one country called "The Two Kingdoms of Cicily". Accordingly, Rocco's place of birth is listed as Cicily, a fact which causes confusion in the family to this day. But Rocco was a Calabreso, not a Ciciliano, a distinction most important to the Calabresi.

Life in Calabria was hard. His parents, Giovanni and Maria, had married very young. The children had come very fast. The older ones had no opportunity for schooling, and never learned to read or write. By the time Rocco was ten, he was working on the docks to help support the family. He was a strong boy, although not particularly large. He had a marked talent for mimicry and dramatization. This talent when combined with his vivid imagination and poor judgement often got him into trouble. He loved the spotlight, however achieved, and would love it for the rest of his life.

At fourteen, he served as a ship's cabin boy for two years and later as a seaman for two years on an American vessel which had come into port. At the end of one voyage when the vessel put into New York, Rocco seized the opportunity extended by the ship's master to stay in America. The year was 1839.

Rocco was eighteen years old, a seasoned sailor, strong as an ox and able to speak a little English. Generally he earned his living as a seaman or worked the docks, with Boston as his home base, but he never stayed in one spot long enough to settle down. He did not, of course, correspond with his family in Italy for neither he nor they could read or write.

After he had been in Boston off-and-on for about eight years, he was sent for by his parish priest. The priest knew him but little as Rocco was only sporadically concerned with his own salvation. This priest had received a letter from the priest at Reggio. Rocco's mother had died the year before at the birth of her daughter Grazzia, and Giovanni had remarried. Natale and Biaggio, the two oldest boys were still living at home. Neither had married. Neither had money for such a trip but both wanted to come to America as did younger brother Antonio, then twelve. He did not get along with his stepmother.

Rocco's distinct liking for wine, women, song and gambling had left him with very little money. For the next several months, he tried through sailor friends and dock connections to secure jobs for the two oldest brothers as seamen aboard various vessels which made the transatlantic run.

He was unsuccessful because both lacked experience as sailors. Biaggio worked in a store. Nat helped his father on the farm. There was no money available on their end. Nat did not get paid for his efforts. Biaggio had always turned his wages over to his father to help support the others. Apparently, the problem of passage could not be solved just then.

When Rocco asked the Boston priest to write a reply saying he could not send money, the stern priest took him severely to task for what he termed a shocking lack of concern for his obligations. Finally a loan was procured by Rocco by the chastened Rocco, and the money was sent with instructions for the brothers to make their own arrangements. On their arrival, they were to contact him through the priest at Boston.

Rocco felt doomed to a life of self-denial and suffering to repay the loan. No more wine and women . . . that was for sure. He would never again feel like singing. And suppose he himself would want to marry someday? When would he ever have enough money to do so? He was in a self-pitying depressed frame of mind with a long face . . . when suddenly a miracle occurred: the first reports of the discovery of gold in California reached Boston! Rocco could not believe his ears. Not just gold, but gold in big loose nuggets that could be scooped up off the ground the way his father's hogs scooped up ground nuts. Piles of these nuggets began to appear in the windows of Boston banking houses.

When Rocco heard that unskilled men could gather from $50 to $500 in gold for each day of work, he was wild with excitement. He had caught the "gold fever," and it grew with every fresh report that reached Boston. Miners' hip boots, big floppy felt hats, and gold-mining machines began to appear in shop windows. Posters were tacked on every fence and wall advertising travel to the gold country. Thousands began leaving Boston weekly.

A typical advertisement is reproduced here. Apparently, the management was overly optimistic about the departure date of February 15th. The Emma Isidora did not sail until March 30th.

Rocco would go. That was beyond question! But what should he do about his brothers? Wait for them? God only knew how long it might be. Wait until the gold was all gone? Wait until he had missed the biggest chance for riches he would ever have in his whole lifetime? No, he reasoned. Far better to quickly go, and quickly return with a fortune large enough for all of them to share! He was sure they would understand. Still, what would they do when they reached New York and he was not there? They could speak no English. Probably none of them could get jobs. And what would the priest think when he found out?

Rocco wavered. Then, on Christmas Day, a friend contacted him in great excitement. The Tahmawo was sailing from New York on January 27th (1849, according to The Argonauts of California, 917.94, H35, pp. 429-430), just four weeks away, bound for California via The Horn. There were openings for crew, and the friend knew the ship's master! That decided it! Rocco "signed on" after extracting a promise from a reluctant friend to contact the priest as soon as the Tahmawo had sailed . . . to say Rocco had been called away unexpectedly, but hoped to return before the year was out. Then, he was gone!

End of Chapter 1