"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." —J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Baldassare Forestiere was born on July 8, 1879 in Filari, a small town in the Province of Messina, Sicily. At the age of 22, after a quarrel with his father, Rosario Forestiere, he immigrated to the United States via the port of Naples. He arrived in Boston in 1901 and found work as a subway tunnel digger. He eventually moved on to New York City to work as a Sandhog, digging tunnels for the subway leading to New Jersey.

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