Domingo Ghirardelli Explained

Domingo Ghirardelli
Birth Name:Domenico Ghirardelli
Birth Date:21 February 1817
Birth Place:Rapallo, Kingdom of Sardinia
Death Place:Rapallo, Kingdom of Italy
Resting Place:USA
Resting Place Coordinates:Family Crypt, Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, CA.
Nationality:Italian, USA citizen 1878
Known For:founding America’s second oldest chocolate company (1852) which was also among the first globally (1860s) to develop and transport soluble ground chocolate for drinking and baking.
Education:Romanengo fu Stefano, Genoa
Occupation:Chocolatier
Spouse:Elisabetta Corsini Ghirardelli (died early, no issue)
Carmen Alvarado Martin Ghirardelli
Children:Dominga Martin (step-daughter)
Virginia
Domingo, Jr.
Joseph Nicholas
Elvira
Cesare
Louis
Angela
Eugene
Parents:Giuseppe and Maddalena Ferretto Ghirardelli

Domenico "Domingo" Ghirardelli (pronounced as /it/; February 21, 1817 – January 17, 1894) was an Italian-born chocolatier who was the founder of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company in San Francisco, California.

Biography

Early life

Domenico Ghirardelli was born on February 21, 1817,[1] in Rapallo, Italy, to Giuseppe and Maddalena (Ferretto) Ghirardelli.[2] His father was a spice merchant in Genoa.[3] In his teens, he apprenticed at Romanengo, a noted chocolatier in Genoa.[4]

At about the age of twenty, in 1838, he moved to Uruguay, then in 1838 to Lima, Peru, where he established a confectionery, and began using the Spanish equivalent of his Italian name, Domingo. In 1849 he moved to California on the recommendation of his former neighbor, James Lick, who had brought 600 pounds of chocolate with him to San Francisco in 1848. Caught up in the California 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.[5] Ghirardelli spent a few months in the gold fields near Sonora and Jamestown, before becoming a merchant in Hornitos, California.[6]

Career

In 1852, he moved to San Francisco and established the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company at what would come to be known as Ghirardelli Square. According to the San Francisco Chronicle he is San Francisco's most successful chocolatier.[7]

Around the year 1865, a worker at the Ghirardelli factory discovered that by hanging a bag of ground cacao beans in a warm room, the cocoa butter would drip off, leaving behind a residue that could then be converted into ground chocolate. This technique, known as the Broma process is now the most common method used for the production of chocolate.[8]

Personal life

Ghirardelli married Elisabetta Corsini (nicknamed "Bettina"), a native of Italy, in 1837. She died in 1846.[9]

Ghirardelli married Carmen Alvarado Martin (1830–1887) in Lima, Peru, in 1847.[10] Her first husband had been a French physician who had been lost at sea,[11] and she had an eight-month-old child, Carmen.[12] He and Carmen had seven children: Virginia (1847-1867);[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–?).[19]

Death

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]

See also

References

Notes
  • Citations

    • External links


    Notes and References

    1. Book: Dillon, Richard H.. North Beach: The Italian Heart of San Francisco. San Francisco. Presidio Press. 1985. 0891411879. 11.
    2. Book: Lawrence. Polly Ghirardelli. Tingley. Margery Menafee. Reed. Ben W.. Teiser. Ruth. The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. 1985. 1.
    3. Book: Lawrence. Polly Ghirardelli. Tingley. Margery Menafee. Reed. Ben W.. Teiser. Ruth. The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. 1985. 3.
    4. Lawrence. Sidney. The Ghirardelli Story. California History. March 2002. 81. 2. 90–115. 10.2307/25177676. 25177676.
    5. News: Ghirardelli Square San Francisco, CA Long Island Grub. 2017-07-11. Long Island Grub. 2018-10-30. en-US. 2018-10-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20181030035659/https://www.longislandgrub.com/ghirardelli-square-san-francisco-california/. dead.
    6. Web site: Hornitos . Ghost Towns, Abandoned Villages, and Historical Sites in the United States and Canada . 2007-07-08 .
    7. SF Chronicle, July 25, 2010. "Where to Find Celebrities' Resting Places" by Charlie Wells
    8. Web site: Ghirardelli . The Ghirardelli Story - A Rich Heritage . 2009-01-10 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090120124102/http://www.ghirardelli.com/about/history.aspx . 2009-01-20 .
    9. Lawrence. Sidney. The Ghirardelli Story. California History. March 2002. 92.
    10. News: The Eastern Shore. Daily Alta California. September 20, 1888. 8.
    11. Lawrence. Sidney. The Ghirardelli Story. California History. March 2002. 164.
    12. https://books.google.com/books?id=Z_0KAQAAMAAJ&q=carmen&pg=PA2 Estate of Domingo Ghirardelli, deceased. No. 14,521. 4 Coffey 1, 7 (San Francisco Superior Court, 20 March 1896).
    13. Book: Lawrence. Polly Ghirardelli. Tingley. Margery Menafee. Reed. Ben W.. Teiser. Ruth. The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. 1985. 10.
    14. Book: Lawrence. Polly Ghirardelli. Tingley. Margery Menafee. Reed. Ben W.. Teiser. Ruth. The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. 1985. 11.
      Book: San Francisco Journal of Commerce. The Builders of a Great City: San Francisco's Representative Men, the City, Its History and Commerce. San Francisco. San Francisco Journal of Commerce. 1891. Domingo Ghirardelli, Jr. born 1849.. 96.
    15. Book: Baker, Joseph Eugene. Past and Present of Alameda County, California. Chicago. S.J. Clarke. 1914. Domenico Ghirardelli, jr. born.. 132.
    16. Book: Lawrence. Polly Ghirardelli. Tingley. Margery Menafee. Reed. Ben W.. Teiser. Ruth. The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. 1985. 16–17.
    17. Book: Lawrence. Polly Ghirardelli. Tingley. Margery Menafee. Reed. Ben W.. Teiser. Ruth. The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. 1985. 19, 21.
    18. Book: Dramov, Alissandra. Carmel-by-the-Sea, the Early Years (1903-1913. Bloomington, Ind.. Authorhouse. 2013. 9781491824146. 128.
    19. Book: Lawrence. Polly Ghirardelli. Tingley. Margery Menafee. Reed. Ben W.. Teiser. Ruth. The Ghirardelli Family and Chocolate Company of San Francisco. Berkeley, Calif.. Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California. 1985. 26.
    20. Web site: Ghirardelli Mausoleum . 2024-01-02 . Mausoleums.com . en-US.
    21. News: Andrew Chamings . From the Black Dahlia to Mac Dre: The bodies of Mountain View . San Francisco Chronicle . March 2, 2020 .

    This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Domingo Ghirardelli".

    Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.