On April 13, 1893, forty-two (42) individuals from the village of Pacentro, Italy dis-embarked from the S.S. Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm at the Port of New York. This group of Pacentrani passengers included thirty-six (36) men, two (2) women, Maria Mancini and Maria Luisa Marsolo, and four (4) children. While each passenger listed New York as their end destination, many would travel to other locations throughout the USA. Some would eventually return to Italy, but many became “birds-of-passage” who traveled back-and-forth across the Atlantic Ocean. In the USA, men earned money as laborers in the coal mines and steel mills, or as stonemasons, or railroad workers. Some wives and children came to join their husbands and fathers in the USA. And, older male children sometimes became ‘birds-of-passage’ earning money and returning to Pacentro to assist their mothers and siblings, while many remained in the USA and became Naturalized citizens.
The following is a cross-section of passengers from the manifest of the S.S. Kronprinz Frederick Wilhelm providing a brief summary of individual life events after their 1893 voyage…
1. Vincenzo Lucci (actually Lucci Peperato) was born on 3 Nov 1867, emigrated in 1893 to New York, but returned to Pacentro (date unknown) where he eventually died on 22 July 1950 at age 82. One of his three children, Domenico Lucci Peperato (who was born in Pacentro 1-year before his father’s 1893 departure to the US) would emigrate to the USA in 1921, submit his Declaration of Intent to become a US Citizen in 1924, become a Naturalized US Citizen in 1927, and live in Detroit with his wife, Maria Lalama, and their three children. He died in Detroit in 1973 at age 80.
2. Nicola Gentile was born 1 Aug 1860 in Pacentro and emigrated to the USA at least two times; the first time was in 1893 and the second trip in 1913. He married twice (his first wife died following the birth of their 2nd child) and fathered a total of eleven children with only five living to adulthood. Although his second wife, Angelica Polisenna (a foundling with a contrived surname), remained in Pacentro (where she died in 1926), at least three of Nicola’s children also emigrated to the USA (Adelina, James and Roberto). It is unknown whether Nicola returned to Italy after his 1913 trip, as he died in Coraopolis, PA in 1917; he was age 57.
3. Innocenzo DiCristofaro was born in 1877 in Pacentro and emigrated three times, the first time in 1893 (end destination was New York) with subsequent trips in 1912 (end destination New Jersey) and 1920 (end destination North Haven, NJ, where his father-in-law, Francesco Tollis, resided). Innocenzo and his wife, Maria Antonia, would eventually settle in Clairton, Allegheny County, PA, where Innocenzo worked as a millwright. Their two sons (Paolo and Giuseppe) would emigrate, as well, but Paolo ventured to Australia, while Giuseppe settled in Clairton, PA. Giuseppe changed his surname to ‘Christopher,’ married Margherita (whose parents were from a village in Chieti), and fathered 5 children. Innocenzo (aka Nocenzo) died in 1957 in McKeesport Hospital, McKeesport (Allegheny County), PA; he was 79.
4. Giustino Zavatti (actually Domenico Giustino) was born in 1859 in Pacentro, emigrated in 1893 to New York, and resided in Kennedy Township, Allegheny County, PA in September 1916. In Italy and in the USA, Giustino worked as a stonemason (muratore). In 1892, he married Cleonice Angelilli and they had 7 children in Pacentro (only one of these children emigrated to the USA). Giustino died in March of 1917 at age 57; he is buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Kennedy Township, PA.
5. Giuseppe DeChellis (actually Sabino Giuseppe DeChellis) was born in 1877, emigrated to the USA in 1893, returned to Pacentro and married Concezia Pompeo in 1899. They had 7 children. On 1 Nov 1926, Giuseppe returned to the USA, where he settled in Coraopolis, Allegheny County, PA and was followed by 4 of his children (Antonietta, Florenza, Giacomo, and Gaetano), all of whom would marry and reside in Coraopolis. Per the 1930 US Census, Giuseppe was a laborer for a chemical company. On 24 Mar 1950, Giuseppe died in Coraopolis, PA; he was 73.
6. In 1893, Luisa (nee Marsolo) Sebastiani was a 41-year-old mother of two, Pasquale (14) and Angela (10) Sebastiani, who traveled with her children to the USA to meet their husband and father, Michele Sebastiani (born in 1851 in Sulmona). Per the 1900 US Census for El Moro, Colorado, Michele (49), Luisa (49), and Serafino (7) Sebastiani resided in house #53. Serafino (incorrectly listed as a female child named Serafina) was born in 1894 in El Moro, but at age 6, he and his 49-year-old father were both listed as ‘day laborers’ on the census form, as child labor was common in the mines of Colorado and New Mexico.
On this same 1900 census record, residents at house #46 in El Moro, CO included Angelina (Sebastiani) Mariani, 19, the wife of Domenico Mariani, 26, and the mother of Florentina, 2, and Giuseppe Mariani, 6/12. Domenico Mariani, a day laborer, was also an emigrant from the village of Pacentro. Between 1898 and 1923, Angelina and Domenico would have eleven children (9 of whom would live to adulthood).
In 1899, Pasquale Sebastiani, who went by Charles Sebastiani, married Virginia Ciccone (born in Pacentro) in Colfax, New Mexico. Between 1900 and 1928, Charles and Virginia had 13 children (some were born in Raton, NM and others were born in Colorado); all but two lived to adulthood…4 lived to their 80’s, 4 lived to their 90’s, and one lived to age 101! In 1952, Charles (Pasquale), 74, was shot and killed along with his daughter, Betty, 24, by Albert Padilla, the recently divorced spouse of Betty. Albert died within 8-hours following a self-inflicted gunshot wound, thus leaving their 8-month-old child an orphan.
By 1910, Michele Sebastiani was listed as a “merchant for a home store” in El Moro, New Mexico. On 23 April 1923 at age 71, Luisa Sebastiani died and is buried in Colfax, New Mexico. In 1945 at age 93, Michele died in El Moro, New Mexico.
Serafino Sebastiani, the youngest child of Luisa and Michele, served in the US Navy during WW I, but died in an auto accident in Raton, NM on 8 April 1923, which was exactly 15-days before the death of his mother, Luisa Sebastiani. Serafino was only 28.
7. Costantino Antonio Pompeo (listed as Constantino) was born in 1865 in Pacentro and first emigrated to the USA in 1890. His voyage onboard the S.S. Kronprinz Fredrich Wilhelm was his second emigration to the USA. In the USA, he was known as AUGUST Pompeo and provided his Declaration of Intent to become a US Citizen in 1896 in the U.S. District Court of Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh.
In 1888, Costantino married Annina Colarossi in Pacentro and had one daughter, Maria Rosa Pompeo, who was born in Italy. In 1904, Annina and her daughter emigrated to the USA and resided with Costantino in Coraopolis, PA, where two more children, Carmine and Americus Enrico, were born.
By 1910, Costantino, a man with artistic talent, became a designer in a glass factory. By 1916, he was a Naturalized U.S. Citizen who applied for and received a U.S. Patent for an ornamental postal card design. At age 68, Costantino died in 1933. In 1927, Annina died at age 60 in Coraopolis.
Copyright Mary Ann Dailey for PacentroGenealogy 2022