by PolackTony » Wed Dec 11, 2024 12:42 pm
JoelTurner wrote: ↑Fri Nov 01, 2024 3:12 pm
This is actually fantastic!
I hadn’t realized that the Antonio Casella killed in 1926
wasn’t Peter’s father. Also didn’t know that they were related to Joe Traina.
The Bryan, TX part is super intriguing too. I’d heard that Morello lived there for a bit but I thought it was a random place. Both Casellas would have easily been old enough to be members when they were there. I wonder if it was a part of the Dallas family or its own thing
Really really great again
Bryan, TX, was definitely not a random place with respect to this subject. There was a significant, largely agricultural, colony of Sicilians who came via NOLA to the Lower Brazos Valley (Brazos County and adjacent areas), starting in the 1870s and continuing to the early 1900s. By 1910, the Sicilian population of Bryan alone numbered several thousand. These settlers were mainly from Poggioreale, though there was also a contingent of Corleonese in the Lower Brazos. Rural life was hard there, so while a good number of Sicilians stayed there permanently, others wound up moving on after a while, mainly to NOLA, KC, Chicago, CA. This is what happened with Morello. He worked as a farm laborer in Bryan for several years before, presumably, deciding it wasn’t worth it and returning to NYC.
I think it’s a strong assumption that there would have been mafia activity in Brazos County, but whether they formed an early colony Family there (given that Sicilians were already arriving in numbers there by the 1880s) which was later absorbed by the Dallas outfit, or what, I have no idea. It’s like 180 miles to Dallas, and Bryan is actually closer to Houston (about which there are also big question marks, with both Sicilian and Calabrian figures active there but unclear if there was a mafia and/or Camorra organization based there early on). Just using the example of Chicago, there were three smaller, independent Families that formed in the immediate orbit of Chicago (Rockford, Chicago Heights, and Gary), all much closer than Brazos County to Dallas. Given what we’ve seen elsewhere with small, early colony Families around the country that later were absorbed or went defunct, I’d wager that Bryan had one also.
[quote=JoelTurner post_id=285814 time=1730499121 user_id=7603]
[quote=nash143 post_id=285796 time=1730459956 user_id=865]
Antonino Casella - https://asicilianmessage.substack.com/p/antonino-casella
[/quote]
This is actually fantastic!
I hadn’t realized that the Antonio Casella killed in 1926 [i]wasn’t[/i] Peter’s father. Also didn’t know that they were related to Joe Traina.
The Bryan, TX part is super intriguing too. I’d heard that Morello lived there for a bit but I thought it was a random place. Both Casellas would have easily been old enough to be members when they were there. I wonder if it was a part of the Dallas family or its own thing
Really really great again
[/quote]
Bryan, TX, was definitely not a random place with respect to this subject. There was a significant, largely agricultural, colony of Sicilians who came via NOLA to the Lower Brazos Valley (Brazos County and adjacent areas), starting in the 1870s and continuing to the early 1900s. By 1910, the Sicilian population of Bryan alone numbered several thousand. These settlers were mainly from Poggioreale, though there was also a contingent of Corleonese in the Lower Brazos. Rural life was hard there, so while a good number of Sicilians stayed there permanently, others wound up moving on after a while, mainly to NOLA, KC, Chicago, CA. This is what happened with Morello. He worked as a farm laborer in Bryan for several years before, presumably, deciding it wasn’t worth it and returning to NYC.
I think it’s a strong assumption that there would have been mafia activity in Brazos County, but whether they formed an early colony Family there (given that Sicilians were already arriving in numbers there by the 1880s) which was later absorbed by the Dallas outfit, or what, I have no idea. It’s like 180 miles to Dallas, and Bryan is actually closer to Houston (about which there are also big question marks, with both Sicilian and Calabrian figures active there but unclear if there was a mafia and/or Camorra organization based there early on). Just using the example of Chicago, there were three smaller, independent Families that formed in the immediate orbit of Chicago (Rockford, Chicago Heights, and Gary), all much closer than Brazos County to Dallas. Given what we’ve seen elsewhere with small, early colony Families around the country that later were absorbed or went defunct, I’d wager that Bryan had one also.