Maceo Brothers from Galveston, Texas

[B.]

While not directly relevant to the OP, the names on Vito Maceo’s 1929 obituary may be interesting for anyone trying to piece together what may have been the outlines of mafia activity in Galveston in this era. Note that Rose Maceo’s wife, Francis, was a DiSpenza but her parents seem to have been from Palermo Città and may not have been related to the Cimminesi DiSpenzas of Chicago. Vito Maceo had two brothers, Salvatore and Vincenzo (the latter married to Concetta Sansone, the sister of Vito’s wife) who also settled in Galveston and died in the 1930s.

I posted about Matteo Arrigo in this very thread, an apparent mafioso who came to the US from Palermo with bosses Manfredi Mineo and Antonino Grillo then eventually settled in Galveston. Somehow I overlooked that Vito Maceo's obituary references an "M. Arrigo" as a pallbearer, no doubt Matteo Arrigo.

So not only would this confirm Arrigo was indeed associated with the Maceos in Texas, it strengthens the likelihood that all parties were true blue mafiosi.

[PolackTony]

While not directly relevant to the OP, the names on Vito Maceo’s 1929 obituary may be interesting for anyone trying to piece together what may have been the outlines of mafia activity in Galveston in this era. Note that Rose Maceo’s wife, Francis, was a DiSpenza but her parents seem to have been from Palermo Città and may not have been related to the Cimminesi DiSpenzas of Chicago. Vito Maceo had two brothers, Salvatore and Vincenzo (the latter married to Concetta Sansone, the sister of Vito’s wife) who also settled in Galveston and died in the 1930s.

I posted about Matteo Arrigo in this very thread, an apparent mafioso who came to the US from Palermo with bosses Manfredi Mineo and Antonino Grillo then eventually settled in Galveston. Somehow I overlooked that Vito Maceo's obituary references an "M. Arrigo" as a pallbearer, no doubt Matteo Arrigo.

So not only would this confirm Arrigo was indeed associated with the Maceos in Texas, it strengthens the likelihood that all parties were true blue mafiosi.

Great catch. I’m glad that OmarSantista bumped this thread.

[Antiliar]

Yep, I was thinking of that CI. Thanks for the reminder he didn't hear about it direct from Civello but from Bosco via Civello.

It's clear the Houston faction was part of the Dallas Family but what muddies the waters is that remote members also lived in Texas like Attardi of the Gambinos and Angelica of the Genovese. Curious if Angelica was tied to the Pellegrino crowd.

Another figure of interest is Matteo Arrigo. He came to the US with Manfredi Mineo and Mineo's bro-in-law Nino Grillo (boss of Resuttana) and lived in Atlanta before ultimately settling in Galveston where he died in the 1950s. Certainly seems like a possible mafioso and his Palermo roots make me wonder if there were other mafia-linked Palermitani in Galveston like the Maceos and Arrigo.

I looked into Houston years ago and it did seem to have connections to New Orleans, making me wonder if it was actually an outpost of the Crescent City borgata. I think at least one of the New Orleans Gulottas spent time there while on the lam.

[falco]

the nephew of sam and rosario maceo is frank fertitta jr. - who was in involved in the vegas skimming operation at the fremont hotel. fertitta was an associate of carl thomas and worked for argent corporation of allen glick.

he was neither arrested or convicted during operation strawman I/II.

his sons are frank and lorenzo fertitta who sold the ufc for $4 billion.

[falco]

some las vegas strip clubs connected to rick rizzolo like bada bing, eden (vinny faraci) and penthouse (al rapuano) were on land owned by the fertitta family.

[Guest]

Antiliar wrote:
> [quote=B. post_id=266421 time=1692835650 user_id=127]
> Yep, I was thinking of that CI. Thanks for the reminder he didn't hear
> about it direct from Civello but from Bosco via Civello.
>
> It's clear the Houston faction was part of the Dallas Family but what
> muddies the waters is that remote members also lived in Texas like Attardi
> of the Gambinos and Angelica of the Genovese. Curious if Angelica was tied
> to the Pellegrino crowd.
>
> Another figure of interest is Matteo Arrigo. He came to the US with
> Manfredi Mineo and Mineo's bro-in-law Nino Grillo (boss of Resuttana) and
> lived in Atlanta before ultimately settling in Galveston where he died in
> the 1950s. Certainly seems like a possible mafioso and his Palermo roots
> make me wonder if there were other mafia-linked Palermitani in Galveston
> like the Maceos and Arrigo.
> [/quote]
>
> I looked into Houston years ago and it did seem to have connections to New
> Orleans, making me wonder if it was actually an outpost of the Crescent
> City borgata. I think at least one of the New Orleans Gulottas spent time
> there while on the lam.

The FDLE in the late 80s tailed Vincent LoScalzo to a meeting in Hosuton where he was seen with Joe Campisi and Joe Marcello from what I recall. Its been a minute since I read the fdle report on that.

[Chaps]

I've read both books on the Maceo's and have come to the conclusion that they were independent of LCN and did not constitute what we would call a "Family". They had their own network in Galveston.

[PTown]

Great thread guys, and great questions and replies. This gets to the core of what Italian American Organized Crime was during the beginnings. Here are some principles I try to keep in mind:

1. The world was MUCH MUCH MUCH less connected than it is now. We tend to forget that. These guys couldn't send a text, jump on a plane, or read a Gangland column to cohere the national syndicate. Yes, yes, I know that a lot of these guys did business and interacted from time to time. But the world was less homogenous. Regional differences MATTERED.

2. You couldn't tell some proud Sicilian immigrant underworld leader who had genuine ties to the homeland and genuine power in his region what to do. Some of these guys would be like, "hey I run [my little city]. Why the hell would I want to 'join' or even affiliate with some dudes from NY?"

3. The regional organizations all had codes of conduct and traditions and particular nuances. Look at the Colacurcio Organization in Seattle. Very similar to the Maceo folks. (I mean a good analogy). No one knows if they were "official" or not. But we moderns tend to make way too much of the "rules" and mob culture as it has developed since the 1960s in the media and movies.

If you think that guys who spoke primarily Italian, first-gen immigrants in the 1920s, were talking like, "Hey Sal, we can't straighten out Jimmie. Matta fact we gotta put him on the shelf because he owns a brothel because of da rules" -- you are sadly mistaken, and guilty of Presentism.

These guys made their own regional rules. Who is to say their regional group wasn't crime that was organized. National affiliations and homogenous culture meant little at that time.

[B.]

Great thread guys, and great questions and replies. This gets to the core of what Italian American Organized Crime was during the beginnings. Here are some principles I try to keep in mind:

1. The world was MUCH MUCH MUCH less connected than it is now. We tend to forget that. These guys couldn't send a text, jump on a plane, or read a Gangland column to cohere the national syndicate. Yes, yes, I know that a lot of these guys did business and interacted from time to time. But the world was less homogenous. Regional differences MATTERED.

2. You couldn't tell some proud Sicilian immigrant underworld leader who had genuine ties to the homeland and genuine power in his region what to do. Some of these guys would be like, "hey I run [my little city]. Why the hell would I want to 'join' or even affiliate with some dudes from NY?"

3. The regional organizations all had codes of conduct and traditions and particular nuances. Look at the Colacurcio Organization in Seattle. Very similar to the Maceo folks. (I mean a good analogy). No one knows if they were "official" or not. But we moderns tend to make way too much of the "rules" and mob culture as it has developed since the 1960s in the media and movies.

If you think that guys who spoke primarily Italian, first-gen immigrants in the 1920s, were talking like, "Hey Sal, we can't straighten out Jimmie. Matta fact we gotta put him on the shelf because he owns a brothel because of da rules" -- you are sadly mistaken, and guilty of Presentism.

These guys made their own regional rules. Who is to say their regional group wasn't crime that was organized. National affiliations and homogenous culture meant little at that time.

Again this is incredibly inaccurate analysis and I recommend studying the subject more deeply.

1. The network was incredibly tight-knit from the very beginning, as it was based on existing relationships within Sicily that further expanded in the US. Mafiosi communicated extensively via letter and regularly took trains all over the country to attend meetings even before other modes of communication and transport were available. They were all closely involved in each others' lives even from afar.

2. It didn't work like that. The system wasn't intended to "tell people what to do", it was a system of representation and these guys were all already products of Cosa Nostra, many of them from multi-generation clans where affiliation and adherence to the mafia system was a fact of life. It wasn't something they even considered, it was simply the water they swam in.

3. The Colacurcios were not a mafia Family. They were a small, independent group of Italian criminals in an area with virtually no Cosa Nostra presence. It's possible they were an outgrowth of an early Camorra society or something but there is no comparison between them and the Maceos, Palermitani who did have ties to the mafia.

You're completely wrong about the rules and protocol. They absolutely did knock people down from membership, shelve people, and expect people to adhere to the universal rules of Cosa Nostra / Fratellanza / mafia / etc. You seem convinced that these guys adopted rules and protocol because of 1960s era media influence when you couldn't be more wrong and even a small amount of research would completely dispel that myth you've created for yourself.

I highly recommend doing more serious research before making these declarations.

--

About the Maceos, no they certainly weren't a Family but there is plenty of reason to believe they were affiliates of Cosa Nostra, we just lack inside sources who can clarify exactly what that entailed.

[PTown]

1. The network was incredibly tight-knit from the very beginning, as it was based on existing relationships within Sicily that further expanded in the US. Mafiosi communicated extensively via letter and regularly took trains all over the country to attend meetings even before other modes of communication and transport were available. They were all closely involved in each others' lives even from afar.

You've clearly one of those folks who's never left the U.S, I'll bet, and never been to Sicily. Even today, traveling between these mountain towns is not easy, and in the 1800s, the local bosses didn't even leave their own villages.

But in your mind, they all took private jets to each other's houses in the 1890s and hung out and came up with New York regionalisms like, "put an associate on the record."

And your imaginary "had to be Sicilian" "rule" / based on "existing relationships in Sicily" is laughable. Just ask Johnny Torrio, who built the Chicago Outfit starting in 1909. He was born in Basilicata -- not even Naples or Calabria. If you tried telling him there was a rule he needed to follow, he'd laugh as hard as I am now, and probably reach for a baseball bat.

And did you even read the rest of this thread and posts today? Others on this forum have posted extensively about how major families, notably several in New York, started as completely independent affiliations of criminals, who happened to be Italian, and then overtook rackets and adopted what we would think of as traditional "mafia" structure. This has been showed time and time again. Examples abound. Get a clue.

2. It didn't work like that. The system wasn't intended to "tell people what to do", it was a system of representation and these guys were all already products of Cosa Nostra, many of them from multi-generation clans where affiliation and adherence to the mafia system was a fact of life. It wasn't something they even considered, it was simply the water they swam in.

Who enforced your conception of this uniform paradigm? Do you have some fantasy of a strong national commission with a separate group of enforcers? NATO peacekeepers perhaps? A Boss of All Bosses spending blood and money to keep the nation uniform?

Again, as shown on other threads here, there widely disparate regional differences, and different rules. It was indeed only after things seeped into national culture, via pop culture, that you started to have more uniform "rules."

Again, as other posters have documented extensively, as have turncoats themselves, the idea of a "strong" commission and a boss of all bosses is largely nonsense.

If you think some proud regional boss in 1910, who was a boss back in the old country and became a boss here - if you think he was going to let some dude in Chicago or Jersey tell him how to run his family, then you are high. You haven't even read the basics (Luciano, Bonanno, etc.)

3. The Colacurcios were not a mafia Family. They were a small, independent group of Italian criminals in an area with virtually no Cosa Nostra presence. It's possible they were an outgrowth of an early Camorra society or something but there is no comparison between them and the Maceos, Palermitani who did have ties to the mafia.

Another conclusion with no supporting evidence masquerading as an argument, under the guise of overconfidence, with a healthy dose of arrogance.

You're completely wrong about the rules and protocol. They absolutely did knock people down from membership, shelve people, and expect people to adhere to the universal rules of Cosa Nostra / Fratellanza / mafia / etc. You seem convinced that these guys adopted rules and protocol because of 1960s era media influence when you couldn't be more wrong and even a small amount of research would completely dispel that myth you've created for yourself.

"Universal rules". OMG

In another thread, you tried to claim "the rules were uniform from Day 1" and then I posted about a dozen rules that were NOT uniform. You had no reply.

Like your silly rule you posted here that "it was a rule that all mob families were Sicilians and many were part of a highly organized group in Sicily in the 1800s."

If you think some dude fresh of the boat from Naples in 1915 was using terms like "shelved" and "got his button" and such, you are high.

If you think every family pre-1930 even followed the paradigm of "boss, underboss, consigliere," you are simply ahistorical.

[chin_gigante]

If you think every family pre-1930 even followed the paradigm of "boss, underboss, consigliere," you are simply ahistorical.

What are you proposing the alternative structures were in the early days of American cosa nostra if they supposedly did not use boss, underboss and consigliere? I don't understand this point, which families are you suggesting used a different structure?

[B.]

You've clearly one of those folks who's never left the U.S, I'll bet, and never been to Sicily. Even today, traveling between these mountain towns is not easy, and in the 1800s, the local bosses didn't even leave their own villages.

But in your mind, they all took private jets to each other's houses in the 1890s and hung out and came up with New York regionalisms like, "put an associate on the record."

And your imaginary "had to be Sicilian" "rule" / based on "existing relationships in Sicily" is laughable. Just ask Johnny Torrio, who built the Chicago Outfit starting in 1909. He was born in Basilicata -- not even Naples or Calabria. If you tried telling him there was a rule he needed to follow, he'd laugh as hard as I am now, and probably reach for a baseball bat.

Western Sicilian mafiosi were well-acquainted with other mafiosi throughout the island even as far back as the 1800s. Yes, travel was more difficult in the Sicilian interior but that did not stop them from visiting other towns and networking. These weren't cripples but extremely enterprising men who knew how to make and sustain connections to their mafia peers regardless of time and place.

There is compelling evidence Torrio and Colosimo were part of the Camorra, itself already a well-organized branch of the Italian underworld, and it's an outdated view that they "created the Outfit." The Chicago Family evolved to include a variety of Sicilian and Italian underworld networks, including Torrio/Capone's network and existing Sicilian mafiosi, much like we see around the United States. What were once Sicilian-centric Families did become pan-Italian but it was a gradual development and the Families were originally highly formal branches of the Sicilian-rooted mafia.

And did you even read the rest of this thread and posts today? Others on this forum have posted extensively about how major families, notably several in New York, started as completely independent affiliations of criminals, who happened to be Italian, and then overtook rackets and adopted what we would think of as traditional "mafia" structure. This has been showed time and time again. Examples abound. Get a clue.

Where has anyone on this forum claimed several New York Families, or any of the Families, started as "completely independent affiliations of criminals, who happened to be Italian" and "overtook rackets and adopted" the mafia structure? Not only is this completely untrue, I have no idea where you're seeing this on the board.

I highly recommend the May 2014 issue of Informer Journal (authored by several board members here) for a comprehensive education on the roots of the NYC Families.

Who enforced your conception of this uniform paradigm? Do you have some fantasy of a strong national commission with a separate group of enforcers? NATO peacekeepers perhaps? A Boss of All Bosses spending blood and money to keep the nation uniform?

Again, as shown on other threads here, there widely disparate regional differences, and different rules. It was indeed only after things seeped into national culture, via pop culture, that you started to have more uniform "rules."

Again, as other posters have documented extensively, as have turncoats themselves, the idea of a "strong" commission and a boss of all bosses is largely nonsense.

If you think some proud regional boss in 1910, who was a boss back in the old country and became a boss here - if you think he was going to let some dude in Chicago or Jersey tell him how to run his family, then you are high. You haven't even read the basics (Luciano, Bonanno, etc.)

My understanding comes from extensive research and collaboration with other detail-oriented researchers. I've spent over 20 years consuming every source available to me and comparing notes with others who have done the same.

Your repeated claim that Families around the country adopted uniform "rules" (why the scare quotes?) through pop culture is bizarre, baseless, and I can't imagine where you got it to begin with. Same with the idea that the core mafia rules were arbitrary and disparate.

The Commission was created in 1931 to act first and foremost as a national mediation board. It was incredibly strong and influential. Before 1931, there was a Gran Consiglio and capo dei capi as well as Assemblea Generale meetings where leaders around the country voted and discussed issues / policies of national concern. Nicola Gentile talked extensively about this and even Giuseppe Morello made reference to these bodies in a 1909 letter to a Chicago leader.

No, these national bodies were not designed to micromanage bosses and Families around the country, but if they did issue a directive or ruling it was law.

"Universal rules". OMG

In another thread, you tried to claim "the rules were uniform from Day 1" and then I posted about a dozen rules that were NOT uniform. You had no reply.

Like your silly rule you posted here that "it was a rule that all mob families were Sicilians and many were part of a highly organized group in Sicily in the 1800s."

If you think some dude fresh of the boat from Naples in 1915 was using terms like "shelved" and "got his button" and such, you are high.

If you think every family pre-1930 even followed the paradigm of "boss, underboss, consigliere," you are simply ahistorical.

The non-uniform examples you gave were either general guidelines (i.e. facial hair) or circumstantial (i.e. the drug rule), nothing that proved "they had no universal rules" early in their history.

No, fresh immigrants weren't using the English terms "shelved" or "button" and if you've followed my argument you'd know a Neapolitan in 1915 wouldn't be using Sicilian mafia-centric terminology even in his native tongue (although if he was a Camorra affiliate he would have his own terms/framework). Sicilian mafiosi coming here in 1915 however absolutely had figures of speech and terminology for shelved/posato and membership. Since you mentioned "button", Dr. Melchiorre Allegra who was made in Palermo in the 1910s even used the term "bottone" to refer to mafia membership so they've been using "button" for a considerable amount of time even in Sicily.

--

If you're wondering why I'm being a bit more aggressive with you than I otherwise would be with a new poster, it's because you registered an account here to shamelessly promote your e-book and constantly steer discussions toward the same bullshit conclusions the book presents. Your intentions are impure, you've done poor research, and your understanding of this subject is a mash-up of crackpot nonsense.

[OmarSantista]

While not directly relevant to the OP, the names on Vito Maceo’s 1929 obituary may be interesting for anyone trying to piece together what may have been the outlines of mafia activity in Galveston in this era. Note that Rose Maceo’s wife, Francis, was a DiSpenza but her parents seem to have been from Palermo Città and may not have been related to the Cimminesi DiSpenzas of Chicago. Vito Maceo had two brothers, Salvatore and Vincenzo (the latter married to Concetta Sansone, the sister of Vito’s wife) who also settled in Galveston and died in the 1930s.

I posted about Matteo Arrigo in this very thread, an apparent mafioso who came to the US from Palermo with bosses Manfredi Mineo and Antonino Grillo then eventually settled in Galveston. Somehow I overlooked that Vito Maceo's obituary references an "M. Arrigo" as a pallbearer, no doubt Matteo Arrigo.

So not only would this confirm Arrigo was indeed associated with the Maceos in Texas, it strengthens the likelihood that all parties were true blue mafiosi.

Great catch. I’m glad that OmarSantista bumped this thread.

A+, B & Humbly Appreciated Chicago Tone! That piece of context makes it clearer to understand just how deeply rooted Maceo's were in the network. Ironically I'm currently reading the Gentile informer article they pop up in mixed in with this orbit of Gambinos. In the article to me it seems like Gentile met Afonso Attardi in Galveston, mid to late 1930's as he says they (Gentile, LaGaipa & Conti) traveled to Galveston 8 days later, after a trip to New Orleans. I wonder if Arrigo and Attardi knew each other in Galveston or earlier in NY although they came from different Sicilian regions and Arrigo didn't stay in NY before Texas. Arrigo of the Gambinos & later Biaggio Angelica of the Genovese being involved with the Galveston/Maceo orbit shows proof 2 families in association from NY. I don't see at least Sam Maceo not being made into the Dallas Family as it seems the Maceo's put the Galveston in the "Houston - Galveston" group, name coined by the CI credited to Tony DL 299-PC.

[Guest]

I want to first start off by saying that I don't get into arguments on this board but.....

Reading through Galveston's Maceo Family Empire by T. Nicole Boatman and The Maceos and The Free State Of Galveston by Kimber Fountain I can find no reference to an LCN link. Yes they are from Sicily but there was no "Galveston Family" to speak of. They were not at Apalachin. Where the Maceo's what we term "Organized Crime"? Yes, definitely. But they did not constitute Mafia or LCN as we define it.

[PTown]

Western Sicilian mafiosi were well-acquainted with other mafiosi throughout the island even as far back as the 1800s. Yes, travel was more difficult in the Sicilian interior but that did not stop them from visiting other towns and networking. These weren't cripples but extremely enterprising men who knew how to make and sustain connections to their mafia peers regardless of time and place.

Ah, that goalpost. It seems to have moved a bit! You posted that American members knew each other, and that so did most in the old country. It's simply...not true. Not even close to true. You have no idea how hard it was to travel along Sicilian goat paths during the era of horse and buggy. You need to read more, or get out more.

There is compelling evidence Torrio and Colosimo were part of the Camorra, itself already a well-organized branch of the Italian underworld, and it's an outdated view that they "created the Outfit." The Chicago Family evolved to include a variety of Sicilian and Italian underworld networks, including Torrio/Capone's network and existing Sicilian mafiosi, much like we see around the United States. What were once Sicilian-centric Families did become pan-Italian but it was a gradual development and the Families were originally highly formal branches of the Sicilian-rooted mafia.

You're being confusing. Or you're dissembling. You've posted elsewhere on this forum that the rules were magically uniform nationwide, because everyone in various cells of these secret societies during the telegraph (not even telephone) era spoke to one another.

Now you acknowledge that some of the earliest members of the Chicago family violated the original "All Sicilian" rule.

You are so clueless and absolute that you don't even grasp that the Camorra was not in Basilicata, and Torrio was from Basilicata.

And even if your facts were correct -- which they're not -- Did the Camorra and the Sicilian Mafia have a treaty in place in 1890? Like, how the NFC and AFC agreed to form the NFL? I cannot LOL enough at your notions.

Where has anyone on this forum claimed several New York Families, or any of the Families, started as "completely independent affiliations of criminals, who happened to be Italian" and "overtook rackets and adopted" the mafia structure? Not only is this completely untrue, I have no idea where you're seeing this on the board.

The guys who made those claims were named Lucky Luciano, Joseph Bonanno, and Joseph Valachi.

I will mail you their books if you start to read things with a little nuance and comprehension.

The Commission was created in 1931 to act first and foremost as a national mediation board. It was incredibly strong and influential. Before 1931, there was a Gran Consiglio and capo dei capi as well as Assemblea Generale meetings where leaders around the country voted and discussed issues / policies of national concern. Nicola Gentile talked extensively about this and even Giuseppe Morello made reference to these bodies in a 1909 letter to a Chicago leader.

No, these national bodies were not designed to micromanage bosses and Families around the country, but if they did issue a directive or ruling it was law.

Examples? Give us ONE rule the Commission made "law" and enforced. One.

Prohibition on drug dealing? Widely different approach in every family.

Prohibition on brothels? Same.

The amount a soldier had to kick up the ladder?

Go back and read material that is contemporaneous with the era you attempt to write about. You'll see even the basics (like kicking up to captain) were not followed in some families.

My gosh, in the Profaci Family, he paid his soldiers instead of the other way around! It was a totally different structure from the rules you delude yourself to be uniform.

If you're wondering why I'm being a bit more aggressive with you than I otherwise would be with a new poster, it's because you registered an account here to shamelessly promote your e-book and constantly steer discussions toward the same bullshit conclusions the book presents. Your intentions are impure, you've done poor research, and your understanding of this subject is a mash-up of crackpot nonsense.

Actually, I assumed you were being so aggressive because you have small hands (that's a euphemism). Or perhaps small stature and a small heart. In other words, that you're simply just a jerk.

I also considered that unlike most people here, you're one of those people who can't handle different viewpoints. You claim to be a dispassionate scholar. That's not how scholars operate...

I've already answered your dumb accusation on other threads. I signed up here to research the Colorado mob, specifically in P-Town. I've posted extensive questions about the same.

I've reviewed TV shows that I obsessed about momentarily. I've posted about multiple books, and the one you think I wrote? Yes I loved it. I'm flattered you think I wrote it. But mah dude, you're oddly paranoid, and hostile to new posters.

I didn't produce the TV show I raved about and I didn't write the books I've cited in my posts (by Bonnano or Martin Gosch or Peter Maas or modern authors).

Might I suggest you tone it down a bit? Go touch grass.