Rosati & Knobview, Missouri

The Italians recruited to work at the Sunnyside Plantation were from the Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Marche regions of Italy.

The first group left from Genoa, denoted by the red star in the Liguria region. Nearly all of the Italians at Rosati who came from the Sunnyside Settlement were from the towns of Recoaro and Valli del Pasubio in Vicenza province, Veneto region.

This area is in the western part of Vicenza, Veneto, Italy where most of Rosati's Sunnyside settlers were from.

The area shown here is only four and one-half by three and one-half miles, which is very similar in size to the area they settled around Rosati. Take note of the areas and roads (known as contradas) with names such as Prebianca, Zulpo, Piazza, Spanevello, Ceola, Frizzi (a.k.a. Frizzo), Bruni, Caneva, Pozzera, Zini, Penzi (a.k.a. Penzo), Benetti, Marchi, Casarotti (a.k.a. Casarotto), Pianalto, Alpe and Facchini. All of these are surnames of Rosati settlers or their descendants.

An artist's rendition of the Chateau Yquem, which brought Sunnyside's first Italians from Italy to New Orleans, disembarking there on November 30, 1895.

A second group of 72 families entered the U.S. through the port at New York on December 29, 1896. By December of 1897, nearly one-third of the colony had made the decision to move to Knobview, Missouri. The first, small group arrived there in January 1898.

Austin Corbin was a New York banker, philanthropist and owner of the Sunnyside Plantation.

He was killed in a carriage accident in New Hampshire on June 4, 1896, just over six months after the first group of Italians arrived at his plantation.

This is the steamboat Austin Corbin, which brought the first group of Italians up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the Sunnyside Settlement in southeast Arkansas.

The settlement and plantation were nearly surrounded by Lake Chicot and the Mississippi River in Chicot County, Arkansas.

Italians Arriving at the Sunnyside Settlement in Chicot county, Arkansas