Francis Barretto Spinola was an American politician and military lead of Portuguese, Irish and Italian ancestry. He is considered by some sources as the first Italian American to be elected to the United States House of Representatives, serving as a representative from New York from 1887 to 1891. He also served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Spinola assumed command of the New York "Excelsior Brigade", on July 11, 1863, following the Battle of Gettysburg as the Army of the Potomac strove to fill open command slots created by battle casualties. Spinola's brigade led the Union troops on July 23 at the Battle of Wapping Heights in Linden, Virginia, suffering 18 men killed, including two officers. Spinola was wounded in the fighting, along with dozens of his men. He was honorably discharged from the service in August 1865. Following the war, Spinola was a banker and insurance agent and became an influential figure among the rapidly growing Italian immigrant community in the New York City area. He was again a member of the State Assembly in 1877, 1881 and 1883. He was a U.S. Representative from New York's 10th District from 1887 to 1891. He died in office in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1891. His funeral was held at the Immaculate Conception Church on April 16, 1891, and he was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. His estate, valued at over $1,000,000 in 1897, was left to his wife, and a nephew, Ferdinand McKee. In 1897 his sister Annie Douglass contested his will.
Family
Spinola had his country seat at Crane Neck, Long Island. It was menaced by a fire in 1887. by her son in 1853 Francis Barretto Spinola was the son of João Leandro Spinola, later Anglicised as John Leander Spinola, a merchant from Madeira Island, and Elizabeth Phelan, daughter of Captain John Phelan, who served in the American Revolutionary War, and his wife Susanna Davis. João Leandro Spinola married Eliza Phelan on June 18, 1808, at Trinity Church parish, New York. Frank W. Alduino, in his book Sons of Garibaldi in Blue and Gray: Italians in the American Civil War, refers to his father John as a "prosperous farmer and oysterman" who migrated to the United States from Madeira Island, Portugal, whose family had originally hailed from the city of Genoa, Liguria. The Spinolas, of noble Genoese origin, moved into Madeira Island in the late 15th, early 16th century, as merchants. John Leander Spinola is recorded travelling between Funchal and New York on board of the brig Pomona in 1821. He is also recorded travelling to Havana and Rio Grande. He was buried in the Meadow Avenue of Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. His grandfather John Phelan was a lieutenant in Wigglesworth's 13th Massachusetts Regiment, and his grand-uncles Edward and Patrick were respectively captain and lieutenant at the same time. He was a member of the Order of the Cincinnati. His grand uncle Phillip Phelan joined the American forces during the Revolutionary War, where he served as lieutenant, and died at the Battle of Eutaw Springs on May 22, 1781. John Phelan's mother was Mary Heron Phelan, from Waterford, Ireland. One of her descendants, Mrs. Regina M. Knott, was one of the earliest members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. He had an older brother, John Leander Spinola who worked as a druggist, a younger brother, Douglas A. Spinola, an older sister, Angelina Spinola, seamstress, and two younger sisters, Louisa and Ann Eliza. Gen. Spinola provided for his sister Ann Douglass until his death in 1891. She supported herself teaching music until her eyesight failed, and by 1903, at over seventy years of age, she was living on charity, on an allowance of $120 a year from the Society of the Cincinnati. This motivated a newspaper article, pleading for help and referring her family, the Spinolas, as New York aristocrats, a "distinguished family". Gen. Francis Spinola married Elizabeth Nancy Glazebrook, from Kings, Saratoga, New York, at May 7, 1855, in New York City. Eliza N. Spinola, as she was known, survived her husband for five years, dying in 1896.
