Revisiting Detroit (genealogy)

[Antiliar]

Gaspare Milazzo's daughter Frances married Dominic Corrado

Milazzo, Frances - Dominic Corrado Marriage record.jpg

Emily Milazzo married Bartolo Cammarato

Milazzo, Emily - Bartolo Cammarato Marriage Record.jpg

[Antiliar]

Interesting that Salvatore Catalanotte married a Perrone and his mother was Giacalone:

Catalonnotte, Salvatore - Death Cert.jpg

Yeah. I don't think there's any relation to the more popular Giacalones who were from Mazzaa de Vallo on their father's side and Terrasinese on their mother's.

Would have to investigate her ancestry to find out if there's a common ancestor.

[Angelo Santino]

Interesting that Salvatore Catalanotte married a Perrone and his mother was Giacalone:

Catalonnotte, Salvatore - Death Cert.jpg

Yeah. I don't think there's any relation to the more popular Giacalones who were from Mazzaa de Vallo on their father's side and Terrasinese on their mother's.

Would have to investigate her ancestry to find out if there's a common ancestor.

I think Scott's looked into it and I believe through his mother there is a distant relation to Zerilli but as the Giacalones parents had no affiliation. Scott can elaborate much better than I.

[Antiliar]

Ignazio Caruso was Salemitan and Joe Catalanotte was born there.

Joe Catalanotte was born in Alcamo according to his World War II draft registration card:

Catalonnotte, Joe - WW2 Draft Reg Card p1.jpg

[PolackTony]

Interesting that Salvatore Catalanotte married a Perrone and his mother was Giacalone:

Catalonnotte, Salvatore - Death Cert.jpg

Yeah. I don't think there's any relation to the more popular Giacalones who were from Mazzaa de Vallo on their father's side and Terrasinese on their mother's.

Would have to investigate her ancestry to find out if there's a common ancestor.

I think Scott's looked into it and I believe through his mother there is a distant relation to Zerilli but as the Giacalones parents had no affiliation. Scott can elaborate much better than I.

Giacalone is a pretty common surname across a number of Trapani comuni (like Accardi/Accardo), so there may be
no direct familial link. IIRC there were a number of Giacalones from Southern Trapani in Chicago, none that were mafia connected so far as I know. If any other connected Detroit guys from Southern Trapani (Marsala, Mazara, Campobello, Castelvetrano) turn up, would be worth thinking about a connection to Chicago for obvious reasons. Worth noting in this context that Angelo Genna stayed in Detroit for a bit after arriving in the US from Marsala, before moving on to Chicago where his brothers were already established.

[B.]

What was going on in Detroit looks like what was happening in places like Cleveland, where Gentile ID'd a fully-structured Family with all the ranks during the 1920s but they descended into factionalism and warfare. You might have had different factions propping up their own boss, which is common during a conflict. It wouldn't necessarily be drawn along strict hometown lines, as in Cleveland you had Licatesi who were diehard D'Aquila loyalists at war with Licatesi who backed Masseria and they were killing each other.

Pete Misuraca said the Flint group was headed by Tony Cusenza until his murder and included the Misuracas and a lot of guys from the northwest Trapani coast. Cusenza was leader of a San Vito Lo Capo mutual aid society and said to be recruiting for the society in Flint and Saginaw at the time of his murder. Could have been a Detroit decina or its own small paesan-based Family that merged with Detroit. A lot of this faction moved to other parts of the US and joined different Families but kept ties to Detroit.

There isn't any smoking gun that says Detroit had multiple Families pre-1920s, it just fits some of the patterns we see in other cities and some of the pieces could lend themselves to it. Celeste Morello / Riccobene suggested Philadelphia's early groups were separated by compaesani but by later decades we see their factionalism became "Sicilian vs. Calabrian". In Detroit where they stayed mostly Sicilian, we have reports that their factionalism still involved the specific compaesani factions. Their sister city St. Louis did too though it was much smaller.

Like with the consiglio idea, I have to keep myself in check so I don't see multiple Families in every place early on just because there are open questions. The examples we have are New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia so it would seem to be larger Families with a large Italian population that went through this process. I've suggested Buffalo could be another, so Detroit wouldn't be out of place if they did consolidate multiple groups at some point.

For Joe Catalanotte, it's his FBN file that says he was born in Salemi.

[PolackTony]

Chicago probably had the same dynamic in terms of a rival faction making its own claim to the top position with Aiello. One could read what happened there as geographic/neighborhood based (Little Sicily vs Taylor St/Chinatown), but there were guys in Little Sicily like the Corleonese Giovanni Oliveri and his Alcamese partner Tony Salamone who may have sided with the Genna/Capone faction against Aiello. So it may have broken down as Bagheresi vs everyone else (lots we don’t know, this is a provisional theory). Cleveland is a great example where the factional fighting clearly cut across paesani lines; in different cities/families, factions developed based on both local geography/associations and compaesani networks, so there will be variability and idiosyncrasy across families.

I don’t know much about early Philly, but in NYC and Chicago distinct early families reflected different spheres of settlement. With Chicago, it’s not incidental that separate families formed specifically in Chicago Heights and (possibly) Gary early on, as these are really satellite cities that had their own local industrial base and attracted Italian immigrants as primary loci of first generation settlement (not mainly secondary settlement from Chicago proper). So it’s more like Newark to NYC (or Brooklyn to Manhattan back in the late 1800s). Without knowing enough about the historical geography of the Detroit metro to make any claims, I would wonder if a town like Wyandotte was similar vis-a-vis Detroit. Seems to me like Wyandotte was a distinct settlement area apart from Detroit proper, and if so, could be that early on it had its own family (not inferring that it actually did, just that it may have had some of the conditions conducive to family formation, like Flint).

[jimmyb]

I included a picture of Joe C's FBN card in my book. That one says he was born in Palermo. I'm almost positive that's not true. I'm not sure if the "Black Book" FBN version was issued before or after the card I found. There's a lot of info on Cockeyed Joe in those OC Congressional Hearings, but I can't remember if they identify where he was born.

According to the black book, Joe's brother Jimmy Catalanotte was born in Alcamo.

[Antiliar]

For Joe Catalanotte, it's his FBN file that says he was born in Salemi.

I notice in the Mafia book by the FBN it gives a different birthdate as well. The draft card gives March 4, 1900. There was a Giuseppe Catalanotto born July 15, 1900 (give or take a year) who lived in Boston who was from Salemi. Wonder if the FBN confused the two.

BTW, I matched the draft card to the address given by the Detroit PD here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... atalanotte

There is also a passenger manifest from SS Italia on Sept 11, 1920, which shows Giuseppe Catalanotti on line 8 going to his brother Salvatore at 201 24th Street in Detroit and who comes from Alcamo (typoed as "Arcamo"). His mother is Vincenza, which matches.

Confusing things is that there were two Salvatore "Sam" Catalanottes in Detroit, one born in February 1893/1895 (the mobster) and the other born in November 1894/1895. There is a family tree where the person seems to have conflated these two men, but she did post an interesting photo of a Joe, Sam and Jasper. Jasper looks a lot like Gaspare Milazzo.

Joe Catalanotte Sam Jasper (Jocatalanotte Ancestrydotcom 2016Mar28).jpg

[jimmyb]

I'll throw in my two cents. First, I don't think the Adamos were Mafiosi. Salemi doesn't seem to have played a role in Detroit, whereas there is strong support for the coastal towns from Castellammare (and Alcamo just below it) to Terrasini and Cinisi. It was suggested a while back that they were vigilantes. Maybe they were just businessmen fighting back against Mafiosi who were extorting them. Second, I'm not sure about Pietro Mirabile one way or the other. If I recall correctly, his brother Tony wasn't made until 1947 or 53 in Los Angeles, but people thought he was a wealthy Mafioso for years before that. It's possible that back then saloon owners like Pete Mirabile had to be a bit gangster to be respected and to defend himself. Or he could have been a capodecina. Just not enough information. Third, Tony Giannola was definitely a boss. That he was a target of the Good Killers strongly suggests Mafia, plus contemporary police and press accounts seem to come to the same conclusion. So maybe Giannola was actually the first Mafia boss of Detroit.

Great stuff guys. Let me start with Dan's response. I'll try to keep it concise. He's measuring underworld status by the person's wealth and stature in the community. Mirabile's portfolio was way more impressive, according to Waugh.

Here are some direct quotes from his text: "Mirabile was a naturalized citizen and saloon keeper, and sat on the committee that facilitated the construction of the Holy Family church. While this was going on, Giannola was still doing manual labor jobs."

"Location is another factor, MIrabile was based in Little Sicily, Giannola in far off Ford City . . . it is important to consider that Giannola had no known businesses in Little Sicily until 1913."

Dan also interviewed Giannola's descendants are they do not believe Tony G was boss that early.

[Antiliar]

I can see that it's possible that at that early stage of development that there were two borgatas, one in Ford City and another in Detroit. We've previously discussed a possible early borgata in Flint/Saginaw. If that's the case, it appears that Giannola's Terrasini faction took over Mirabile's. Since Mirabile wasn't killed, maybe he stepped aside. Perhaps this encroachment/takeover/whatever it was had something to do with the killings that seem to have ended with the murder of John Vitale in 1920. Just putting it out there.

[jimmyb]

In terms of the Adamo brothers, I still think it's unlikely Vito Adamo was a boss, but I respectfully disagree with the notion they were "White Hand" vigilantes. The most profound evidence to me is: Felice Buccellato was almost certainly Mafioso. It's clear the Adamo and Buccellato families were close. And Vito Adamo and Felice were the ones who killed Carlo Caleca. Would Adamo team up with a Mafioso to kill another Mafioso in cold blood if he were just an outraged citizen?

I also have to push back on the Giannola murders. IMO the Good Killers had nothing to do with the Giannola murders. I believe the DPD invented that so they could say "case closed." Meanwhile, journalists were confused because Fontana described how the Good Killers killed the Buccellatos in Detroit (even here there was some confusion---Fontana said "Salvatore Buccellato was killed in Detroit, but it was Salvatore's son Pietro who was killed). The Good Killers were taking out the Buccellatos and their allies around the same time as the Giannola killings. However, the Giannolas were involved in a war with the John Vitale faction. Vitale and his guys were from Cinisi. Some of his supporters were also from Alcamo, Trapani and some other cities I can't remember----basically the guys who weren't from Terrasini. I think there's no doubt Vitale ordered the murders of the Giannola brothers. Vitale was then hit as retaliation. In all likelihood the shooter was Tony D'Anna. You'd have to ask Scott, but I believe Tony Zerilli confirmed that with him. Anyhow, I honestly don't believe the Magaddino/Bonventre/Bonanno alliance had any interests in interfering in the Giannola/Vitale war.

Let me know what you guys think.
Best,
JB

[Chaps]

For Joe Catalanotte, it's his FBN file that says he was born in Salemi.

I notice in the Mafia book by the FBN it gives a different birthdate as well. The draft card gives March 4, 1900. There was a Giuseppe Catalanotto born July 15, 1900 (give or take a year) who lived in Boston who was from Salemi. Wonder if the FBN confused the two.

BTW, I matched the draft card to the address given by the Detroit PD here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... atalanotte

There is also a passenger manifest from SS Italia on Sept 11, 1920, which shows Giuseppe Catalanotti on line 8 going to his brother Salvatore at 201 24th Street in Detroit and who comes from Alcamo (typoed as "Arcamo"). His mother is Vincenza, which matches.

Confusing things is that there were two Salvatore "Sam" Catalanottes in Detroit, one born in February 1893/1895 (the mobster) and the other born in November 1894/1895. There is a family tree where the person seems to have conflated these two men, but she did post an interesting photo of a Joe, Sam and Jasper. Jasper looks a lot like Gaspare Milazzo.

Joe Catalanotte Sam Jasper (Jocatalanotte Ancestrydotcom 2016Mar28).jpg

I have never seen a photo of Gaspare Milazzo that I remember. I've seen a formal studio portrait of Sam Catalanotte and the man in the middle does bear a resemblance to that one. Also, the photos available of Joe as an older man do also have a resemblance. Wish I could dig up the other picture of Sam. Maybe Scott has it.

[DoubleZ]

Great thread guys, fantastic info and insight as always.

I don’t have much to add, however a potential link to Chicago and Detroit via Marsala - I would dig into Lorenzo Alagna from Chicago. He (and later his son) had connections/relationships with the Detroit area Marsala transplants.

The Alagna’s would eventually own a radio station and a bank in Chicago, among other businesses.

FWIW, there are also Giacalone’s based in Windsor, Ontario. This group of Giacalone’s may also be a connection to Marsala, or at least the Trapanese faction. These connections may only be social, but wanted to put that out there.

DZ

[Raven]

I included a picture of Joe C's FBN card in my book. That one says he was born in Palermo. I'm almost positive that's not true. I'm not sure if the "Black Book" FBN version was issued before or after the card I found. There's a lot of info on Cockeyed Joe in those OC Congressional Hearings, but I can't remember if they identify where he was born.

According to the black book, Joe's brother Jimmy Catalanotte was born in Alcamo.

You’ve got a book out? What’s the title? I’ll check it out.