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By the time of their departure in 1858, Carlo at 30 and his brother at around 32
were older than the majority of Italian speakers then emigrating to the Colony* This
fact, together with the news coming back from compatriots who had preceded them to
the goldfields, should have ensured they were well informed of their prospects.
Certainly the decision to emigrate was not a frivolous nor impulsive one, for it meant
Carlo leaving behind his wife. He appears to have arranged his own, as weU as his
brother's, passage to Australia from Maggia in Ticino,* this fact alone suggesting that,
Uke the many impoverished Ticinesi who supplemented their farming incomes with
labouring jobs in Italy, the Gervasoni had spent long periods working in Ticino in order
to meet their financial commitments. Since Carlo arrived in Australia with sufficient
money to join a mining venture, the brothers may have become eligible for the same
council loans as the Maggesi, although it is more likely that these loans had ceased by
1858.' Travelling to Melboume aboard the Harmonides,^ which departed Liverpool
with sixteen Ticinesi and a number of northem Italians as passengers, the Gervasonis
shared a cabin with fellow villagers A. and G. Milesi, who may later have opened a
hotel in Yandoit Creek. Like the Gervasonis, the Milesis joined many Lombards
settling in the region, their business and social interactions revealing the durability of
kinship and village ties.
Though the skills of Cario and Giuseppe Gervasoni lay chiefly in dairy farming,
it was to gold mining that they initially tumed. After making their way first to
Hepburn, Carlo purchased shares in a mining tunnel at Italian Flat, an area named for
its high per centage of ItaUan-speaking residents (later renamed Yandoit Creek).
While underground mining was still popular in the Colony, the Gervasonis, Uke most
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