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While Serafino had been eaming the esteem of the Heywood community, his
brother Giuseppe had remained in the Daylesford district. Continuing in the Old
Racecourse Hotel for a number of years, by 1871 he had begun paying rates on a
vineyard in the town: he had purchased a large block of land beside the Hepbum
school on 10 July of that year where he planted around one and a half hectares of
grape-vines. Serving some time on the councU of the Mount Franklin Shire, he had
also assisted in various fund-raising activities for the district."*' In 1871 he had
impersonated the Swiss legendary hero, William Tell, in a play for the Daylesford
Hospital fete, reinforcing a somewhat stereotyped view of Swiss culture among the
townsfolk. A subscriber to the Daylesford Hospital and Benevolent Asylum, his
performance received praise in the local press:
Shall we ever forget the first hospital fete in 1871, how nobly the Swiss
and ItaUans with Joseph Righetti in the van representing William Tell,
wdth bow and arrows, and his son Bob, as the son, marched up Vincent
St, m front of 200 of his countrymen to help in assisting this
institution.*"
With a number of Italian speakers also helping in the fund-raising project for the
hosphal, it would appear that any traditional hostUity there may have been to such
institutions was apparently diminishing wdthin the immigrant population by this time.
On 25 Febmary 1873, Giuseppe had purchased another block of land along the
main road of Hepbum and ten years later become licensee of its American Hotel
(premises which another branch of the Righetti family were thought to have brought to
Australia from America in kit form) (ref figure 11).*^ He purchased more land in
Hepbum on 22 Febmary 1884 ~ his total holdings by this time being quite substantial -
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