For the sake of Ken Burns prohibition documentary I'll tell this interesting local story:
Leo Salamanda was an Italian immigrant and Trenton bottler whose family were prominent liquor distributors in the early 1900s. Leo made the NY Times when he was killed in a shootout with Newark gangsters in 1920. Leo along with some associates were delivering a load of liquor when they were approached by four armed men in a Cadillac touring car about three o'clock in the morning at Kingston, NJ. When the smoke cleared Leo and one of the gangsters were dead of gunshot wounds to the head and the gangsters fled toward Newark at high speed. They wrecked their car near New Brunswick and eventually captured.
One day my bottle digging friend laid his hat down next to where I was standing. I poked my digging tool in the ground next to his hat and hit something. It was a blob soda bottle from the company of Emilio Grandi of Kingston, NJ. It was the first bottle I remember finding by Grandi and as always was inspired to dig into his background.
Kingston is a small town just outside Princeton, NJ. Many Italian immigrants came there during the late 1800s because of the stone quarry which supplied Princeton Uni with building stone. I found that Italian born Grandi had arrived at Ellis Island on Dec 2, 1895 from Le Havre France aboard the Normande. He was to become the first of other Italian bottlers to settle at Kingston. John Rosso and his son John Jr had emigrated from Italy earlier and operated a fruit market at State and Greene Sts before starting a bottling business in Kingston around the turn of the century.
The most well known Italian bottler in Kingston was Joseph Catelli. Joseph immigrated in 1897 settling in Kingston at the turn of the century. He married Emilio Grandi's daughter and his company prospered, lasting well up into the 1930s.
An obituary stated that Grandi died at the home of his daughter in Allentown, PA, 95 years old in 1950.
Leo Salamanda was an Italian immigrant and Trenton bottler whose family were prominent liquor distributors in the early 1900s. Leo made the NY Times when he was killed in a shootout with Newark gangsters in 1920. Leo along with some associates were delivering a load of liquor when they were approached by four armed men in a Cadillac touring car about three o'clock in the morning at Kingston, NJ. When the smoke cleared Leo and one of the gangsters were dead of gunshot wounds to the head and the gangsters fled toward Newark at high speed. They wrecked their car near New Brunswick and eventually captured.
One day my bottle digging friend laid his hat down next to where I was standing. I poked my digging tool in the ground next to his hat and hit something. It was a blob soda bottle from the company of Emilio Grandi of Kingston, NJ. It was the first bottle I remember finding by Grandi and as always was inspired to dig into his background.
Kingston is a small town just outside Princeton, NJ. Many Italian immigrants came there during the late 1800s because of the stone quarry which supplied Princeton Uni with building stone. I found that Italian born Grandi had arrived at Ellis Island on Dec 2, 1895 from Le Havre France aboard the Normande. He was to become the first of other Italian bottlers to settle at Kingston. John Rosso and his son John Jr had emigrated from Italy earlier and operated a fruit market at State and Greene Sts before starting a bottling business in Kingston around the turn of the century.
The most well known Italian bottler in Kingston was Joseph Catelli. Joseph immigrated in 1897 settling in Kingston at the turn of the century. He married Emilio Grandi's daughter and his company prospered, lasting well up into the 1930s.
An obituary stated that Grandi died at the home of his daughter in Allentown, PA, 95 years old in 1950.
