founding America's third oldest chocolate company (1852) which was also among the first globally (1860s) to develop and transport soluble ground chocolate for drinking and baking.
Domenico Ghirardelli was born on February 21, 1817,[1] inRapallo, Italy, to Giuseppe and Maddalena (née Ferretto) Ghirardelli.[2][3] His father was a spice merchant inGenoa.[4] In his teens, he apprenticed at Romanengo, a notedchocolatier in Genoa.[5]
At about the age of twenty, in 1838, he moved toUruguay, then in 1838 toLima, Peru, where he established aconfectionery, and began using theSpanish equivalent of hisItalian name, Domingo. In 1849 he moved toCalifornia on the recommendation of his former neighbor,James Lick, who had brought 600 pounds of chocolate with him toSan Francisco in 1848. Caught up in theCalifornia Gold Rush, he opened his first store in a mining camp to sell sweets and treats to miners who were lacking the small pleasures of life.[6] Ghirardelli spent a few months in thegold fields nearSonora andJamestown, before becoming a merchant inHornitos, California.[7]
In 1852, he moved to San Francisco and established the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company at what would come to be known asGhirardelli Square. According to theSan Francisco Chronicle he is San Francisco's most successful chocolatier.[8]
Around the year 1865, a worker at the Ghirardelli factory discovered that by hanging a bag of groundcacao beans in a warm room, thecocoa butter would drip off, leaving behind a residue that could then be converted into ground chocolate. This technique, known as theBroma process is now the most common method used for the production of chocolate.[9]
Ghirardelli married Elisabetta Corsini (nicknamed "Bettina"), a native of Italy, in 1837. She died in 1846.[10]
Ghirardelli married Carmen Alvarado Martin (1830–1887) inLima, Peru, in 1847.[5][a][11] Her first husband had been aFrench physician who had been lost at sea,[3] and she had an eight-month-old child, Carmen.[12] He and Carmen had seven children: Virginia (1847–1867);[b][13] Domenico Jr. (1849–1932);[14] Joseph Nicholas (1852–1906);[15] Elvira (1856–1908);[16] Louis (1857–1902);[17] Angela (1859–1936);[18] and Eugene Gustave (1860–?).[c][3][19]
He died on January 17, 1894, in Rapallo, Italy from influenza. His body was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland,[20] California along with the rest of his family.[21]
^Virginia married Angelo Mangini, and they had a daughter, Amelia, in 1863. Amelia died in 1879, leaving no heirs.
^Historian Sidney Lawrence gives Eugene's date of birth as 1860, but Polly Ghirardelli Lawrence says none of her relatives knows Eugene's actual date of birth. Sidney Lawrence notes that he married Rosa Capelli, and the couple had two sons: Angelo and Rinaldo. He goes on to say that Eugene founded an import company, E. Ghirardelli Mercantile Company, which went bankrupt in 1905. Polly Lawrence and Sidney Lawrence note that Eugene disappeared in 1909, and Sidney Lawrence says he was declared legally dead in 1921.
Citations
^Dillon, Richard H. (1985).North Beach: The Italian Heart of San Francisco. San Francisco: Presidio Press. p. 11.ISBN0891411879.
^Lawrence, Polly Ghirardelli; Tingley, Margery Menafee; Reed, Ben W.; Teiser, Ruth (1985).The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.: Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. p. 1.
^abcLawrence, Sidney (March 2002). "The Ghirardelli Story".California History: 164.
^Lawrence, Polly Ghirardelli; Tingley, Margery Menafee; Reed, Ben W.; Teiser, Ruth (1985).The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.: Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. p. 3.
^Lawrence, Polly Ghirardelli; Tingley, Margery Menafee; Reed, Ben W.; Teiser, Ruth (1985).The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.: Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. p. 10.
^Lawrence, Polly Ghirardelli; Tingley, Margery Menafee; Reed, Ben W.; Teiser, Ruth (1985).The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.: Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. p. 11.;San Francisco Journal of Commerce (1891).The Builders of a Great City: San Francisco's Representative Men, the City, Its History and Commerce. San Francisco: San Francisco Journal of Commerce. p. 96.Domingo Ghirardelli, Jr. born 1849.
^Lawrence, Polly Ghirardelli; Tingley, Margery Menafee; Reed, Ben W.; Teiser, Ruth (1985).The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.: Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. pp. 16–17.
^Lawrence, Polly Ghirardelli; Tingley, Margery Menafee; Reed, Ben W.; Teiser, Ruth (1985).The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.: Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. pp. 19, 21.
^Lawrence, Polly Ghirardelli; Tingley, Margery Menafee; Reed, Ben W.; Teiser, Ruth (1985).The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.: Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. p. 26.
