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Arriving only a few years after the first gold discoveries at Jim Crow, when
aUuvial gold was still being parmed from the creek beds, it is possible that Maurizio,
Battista and Giacomo mined with some success. Working the creeks around Jim Crow,
one of the brothers eamed sufficient to open a small store in Spring Creek. ^" By 1854
this same member of the Morganti family had also purchased a number of dairy cattle
and was supplying milk to the miners. In what could be considered a traditional
peasant maimer, he had tried to diversify his income by drawing upon his farming skills
and the opportunities which a growing colony offered. His dairy cattle were permitted
to roam freely through the scmb, summoned home for milking ~ in traditional Swiss
manner ~ to the sound of a large horn.
There is evidence for the mining activities of others members of the Morganti
family around Daylesford in the mid 1850s from Maddicks: 'The first gold panned east
of Daylesford was by Morganti and party in 1856 in Leechs Creek'." As at least three
members of a different branch of the Morganti family had also arrived in Australia by
this time, it is not certain, however, to whom the comment refers. ^^ A similar problem
exists with a letter Stefano Pozzi wrote in 1855, recording good gold finds for
members of the Morganti family:
I fratelli Morganti hanno un buco buono, e sono otto compagni,
entra anche il Giuseppe Cerini detto Cerucchi, e gia duve
settimane che fanno circa una libbra d'ora ciascuno compagno.
Cerini had arrived in Australia from Giumaglio and was, no doubt, a friend of both the
Pozzi and Morganti families. Stefano's letter is indicative of the types of information
networks estabUshed by these peasant people in order to keep their families informed
of their whereabouts: since a number of the immigrants were illiterate, these networks
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