Submitted by Descendant: Charles Williard LORD
Peter Antonio Gandolfo was born 3 April 1802, in Genoa, Italy, and arrived in Key West, Florida in 1829, where he declared his intention to become a United States citizen. The oral history of the Gandolfo family indicates that Peter was born to a renowned family in Italy and a letter later received from the Vatican upheld the assertion that his family once owned Castle Gandolfo, the summer residence of Catholic popes. Peter was baptized a Catholic at the age of two in the Parish of St. Maria de Patro in Maret, Sardinia, a province of Italy.
The marriage of Peter Gandolfo to Mrs. Clara Climquebis/Quencovis/Guincovis appeared in the 18 January 1832 edition of The Gazette, a newspaper published in Key West. The wedding took place on Saturday, January 12, and the Monroe County marriage license application shows the names as Pedro Antonio Gandolfo and Claripa Guincovis. Clara is purported to have been born about 1804 in St. Augustine, Spanish Florida, into the Arnow/Arnau family.
Peter appears in a number of Monroe County census records beginning in 1840. By 1850 he was a wealthy merchant with real estate valued at $10,000.
Peter Antonio Gandolfo was first established as a Florida Pioneer in 2010