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GAGGIONI
The story of the Gaggioni family ~ and references to other families like the
Lucinis and Crippas ~ which conclude this chapter confirms that during the 1860s a
pattem of chain migration became estabUshed which, in uniting families in the Colony,
continued to lure Italian speakers from their homelands. The people of Gordevio in
the Valle Maggia (ref figure 4) had long sought work in foreign lands ~ in 1855 five
per cent of the population were absent from Switzeriand* ~ but never had they
travelled so far and never without the option of retum. During the 1850s, this situation
changed and, like the inhabitants of nearby Maggia, Coglio, Giumaglio, Someo and
Avegno, those in Gordevio were swept up in an exodus which threatened to destroy
the very Uvelihood of their village. While the majority had departed between 1854 and
1855 (when over 80 per cent of those Australia bound passengers accepted council
loans), the numbers had remained high over the foUowing decades as families sought
reunion overseas; by 1873, Gordevio's population had faUen by one third.^ In 1860,
joining the 60 or 70 people who had already departed for Australia,' Pietro Gaggioni
made his plans to emigrate to the Colony.
I was stmck with the houses of Gordevio ... They are built of stone
packed one above the other with no mortar or other binding substance,
while the roofs were of rough hewn slates similarly laid on. However
there they were and there they seemed to stand. One thing aids and that
is that they are so completely surrounded by mountains that they never
get strong winds."*
This extract from a letter sent to the Pozzis from a friend in 1906 describes the village
in the Valle Maggia from which Pietro Gaggioni emigrated to Australia in 1860.
Though he appears to have been the only member of his immediate family to emigrate
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