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THE TEXfANS AND THE TEXANS ~
LIBRARY
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
THE
POLISH
TEXANS
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO
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THE TEXIANS AND TEXANS
A series dealing with the many peoples who have contributed to
the history and heritage of Texas. Now in print:
Pamphlets-The Indian Texans, The German Texans, The Nor­wegian
Texans, The Mexican Texans (in English), Los Tejanos
Mexicanos (in Spanish) , The Spanish Texans, The Polish Texans,
The Czech Texans, The French Texans, The Italian Texans, The
Greek Texans, The Jewish Texans, The Syrian and Lebanese Tex­ans,
The Afro-American Texans, The Belgian Texans, The Swiss
Texans, The Chinese Texans and The Anglo-American Texans.
Books-The Irish Texans, The Danish Texans and The German
Texans.
The Polish Texans
Principal Researcher: James Patrick McGuire
© 1972: The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
First Edition, Fifth Printing, 1981
Jack R. Maguire, Executive Director
Pat Maguire, Director of Publications and
Coordinator of Programs
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-621233
International Standard Book Number 0-933164-34-3
This publication was made possible, in part, by a grant from the
HOUSTON ENDOWMENT, I~C.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover: John Adamietz
Courtesy of Mrs. Rosemary Clark
Inside Cover: Panna Maria Panorama
I.T.C. Collection
Back Cover: The Tom Morawiecz Family
Courtesy of Mrs. W. C. Allen
INTRODUCTION
Polish emigration to Texas began early
in the 19th century. The United States
was then an emerging power, but in the
Old World the Polish state, having en­dured
800 years, had been torn apart by
powerful neighbors. Between 1772 and
1795 Russia, Prussia, and Austria had
partitioned Polish earth, and that country
ceased to exist until its rebirth following
World War I. Faced with cultural, eco­nomic,
and religious discrimination,
many Poles sought refuge elsewhere.
Those who had wealth and position set­tled
in the cities of western Europe; the
poor sailed to America seeking a new
life. Thousands of Polish soldiers joined
Napoleon's army in the vain hope of
liberating their homeland.
MORFI'S SCHEME
1812
At the height of the Napoleonic Wars
Don Diego Morfi, the Spanish consul at
New Orleans, suggested that his govern­ment
offer land in Texas to Polish soldiers
who would desert the French armies in
Spain. The proposed seven-league grant
would be located on the southeast Texas
coast to form a buffer against American
Louisiana. Morfi's idea was rejected . The
Spanish government feared the Poles' loy­alty
to Napoleon, their possible infection
with revolutionary ideas, and other dan­gers
inherent in planting a foreign colony
on Spanish Texas' border with the United
States.
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SETTLERS AT CHAMP D'ASILE , BY LOU IS (;ARNERAY
CHAMP D'ASILE
1818
After Napoleon's downfall in 1815, nu­merous
Polish soldiers from his army de­cided
to follow their countrymen to the
New World. Several joined a group of
French colonists who gathered at Phila­delphia
under General Charles Lalle­mand.
In 1817 they sailed, 400 strong,
for the Spanish province of Texas, where
they planned to build a fo rtified colony­Champ
d' Asile-then rescue the Emperor
Napoleon from imprisonment on Saint
Ratchford ( ed.), Champ d'Asile
Helena. They settled near the present
town of Liberty, T exas. Food shortages
and reports of an advancing Spanish ar­my
caused abandonment of the proj ect
within eight months. Most of the refugees
made their way to Louisiana.
CONSTANTIN
MALCZEWSKI
Construction of the fortifications at
Champ d' Asile was under the direction
of several artillerymen who had served
with Napoleon. One was Constantin Mal­czewski,
brother of the famous Polish
poet, Anthony Malczewski. Three other
Poles-Skierdo, Salanav, and Boril­helped
in the construction of this short­lived
enterprise. After its collapse Mal­czewski
emigrated to Mexico, where he
became a general of artillery in the Mexi­can
Army from 1834 to 1837.
JOSEPH A. CZYCZERYN
1821
In all probability Captain Joseph Alexan­der
Czyczeryn was a Louisiana resident
when he joined Dr. James Long's second
filibustering expedition to Spanish Texas
in 1821. This expedition declared Texas'
independence, formed a government, and
occupied Nacogdoches and La Bahia be­fore
the Spanish captured most of the
invaders. Czyczeryn fled to the United
States.
REVOLUTION IN POLAN D
1830
In 1830-1831 the people of Russian-occu­pied
Poland staged a desperate rebellion.
The uprising was cruelly suppressed. Pol­ish
soldiers took an oath never to surren­der
to the Russians, choosing exile in­stead.
They were joined in flight by
thousands of students, professional peo­ple,
and noblemen. Austria, Prussia, and
France offered refuge for awhile, but only
France allowed them to remain; Austria
and Prussia deported them to the United
States, where they were welcomed as
"freedom fighters ." Congress granted
them land in Illinois, but these career sol­diers
made poor farmers. and when the
Texas Revolution broke out in 1835.
many volunteered to win glory in the
only vocation they knew.
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The Poles who came to fight for Texas
independence may have been preceded
on Texas soil by an elusive character
from Virginia named John D. Zekainski.
In March, 1831, this man was awarded
1100 acres of land in present Fort Bend
County, but apparently he never claimed
it, and his title was set aside by court or­der
in 1835.
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SIMON WIESS
1833
When 33-year-old Simon Wiess landed at
Galveston in 1833, he came as a trader
and representative of the Masonic Lodge
in Texas. He remained as the forebear of
a Texas Polish family which has influ­enced
the state's business community to
the present day. Born in Lublin, Poland,
Wiess traveled in Turkey, the West Indies,
and South and Central America before
coming to the United States in 1826. Soon
after his arrival in Texas he was appoint­ed
deputy collector of customs at Galves­ton
for the Mexican government. The job
offered neither security nor a future, how­ever;
the Texans rebelled, won independ­ence,
and established their own govern­ment.
In 1836 Wiess was made customs
collector at Camp Sabine by President
Sam Houston of the Texas Republic. Lat­er
that year the young Polish immigrant
married and moved to Nacogdoches as a
merchant-trader. By 1840 he had estab­lished
the settlement of Wiess Bluff over­looking
the Neches River in Jasper Coun­ty.
He became a leader in the flourishing
riverboat trade on both the Neches and
Sabine. After his death in August, 1868,
his sons and grandsons became prominent
lumber- and oilmen in Southeast Texas.
One son, Valentin Wiess, was a million­aire
at 21. When he was 50 Valentin's
fortune was doubled by the Spindletop
oil discovery. Harry Wiess, a grandson of
old Simon, was a leader in the Texas oil
industry for four decades, until his death
in 1948.
I
I
THE TEXAS
REVOLUTION-GOLIAD
1836
An undetermined number of Polish-born
fighting men came to Texas during the
winter of 1835-1836 to aid in the war for
independence. Incomplete records and
misspelled names create doubt as to the
exact number who participated. Few
lived to claim their reward of bounty
lands in the new Texas Republic. When
disaster overtook Colonel James Fannin's
little army at Goliad, there were Polish
exiles in the ranks as engineers and artil-
"sURRENDER OF SANTA ANNA, " BY W . H . HUDDLE
lerymen. Michael Debicki, who had been
a major in the Polish Army. served as an
C'ngineer in Captain Peyton S. Wyatt's
company at Goliad. Debicki had fled to
France in 1831, then to the United States
in 1834. He returned to the military pro­fession
by enlisting in Captain Cheno­weth's
Texas Company on January 27.
1836. A month later he joined Wyatt's
outfit. Some of the Polish volunteers in
Fannin's artillery were the brothers Fran­cis
and Adolph Petrussewicz and John
Kornicky, all three of whom were mem­bers
of the Huntsville (Alabama) Volun­teers.
Joseph Schrusnecki also helped man
Stale Capitol Building at Austin
the howitzers. The artillery commander.
Francis Petrussewicz, was killed at the
disastrous battle of Coleto. Those who sur­vived
were imprisoned in the old Spanish
presidio at Goliad. The Poles were exe­cuted
with the rest of Fannin's men on
Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836.
FELIX WARDZINSKI
AT SAN JACINTO
The success of the Texas Revolution, in
serious doubt after the defeats at Goliad
and the Alamo, was determined by the
swift victory at San Jacinto on April 21,
1836. Felix Wardzinski was a member of
that victorious army. Born in Poland in
1801, Wardzinski participated in the
abortive uprising against Russia in 1830-
1831. After defeat he landed first in Aus­tria,
from which he was deported to the
United States in 1834. He reached Texas
in January 1836 and, the following
month, enlisted in Captain Amasa Tur­ner's
company for the duration of the
Texas Revolution. During this time
W ardzinski was described by a fellow
soldier as having brown hair, blue eyes,
and a fair complexion. Although only
five feet seven inches tall, he had an erect
military bearing. Later the Republic of
Texas awarded the Polish veteran a 320-
acre bounty in Harris County. Ward­zinski
rose to prominence in the young
Republic, and when its existence was
threatened in the War of 1846 he fought
with Texas volunteers at the Battle of
Monterrey. It is estimated that over 200
Poles fought on the American side in this
war.
5
6
COUNCIL HOUSE FIGHT
WI L L I AM SA NDU SKY
1839
When Austin, Texas, was laid out in
1839, Virginia-born William Sandusky
helped to survey and prepare a map of the
fledgling capital. At that time he was an
artist and draftsman in the General Land
Office. Later he served a brief tenure as
registrar of that agency. In 1840 he be­came
secretary to President Mirabeau B.
Lamar, resigning the following year be­cause
of ill health. He moved to Galveston,
where he was designated to survey the
coast and harbors of Texas. He died in
the port city in 1846 at the age of 33.
TH E CO UNCIL
H OUS E FIG HT
1840
One Pole, known only as Private Kamin­ski,
stayed in the Texas Army after the
Revolution, and served in the troubled
times of the Republic. He was in San An-
De Shields, Border Wars of Texas
tonio on March 19, 1840, when a group
of Comanches met with representatives
of the Texas government to discuss there­lease
of Matilda Lockhart, an Indian cap­tive.
Soldiers entered the council house as
the Comanches were told that they would
be detained until all captives were re­leased.
The Indians denied having others,
and a fight ensued which opened a new
era of Indian hostility. Thirty-five Co­manches
died at the council house. An­other
fatality was Private Kaminski.
THE TEXAN
SANTA FE EXPEDITION
1841
In June, 1841, 321 Republic of Texas sol­diers
and merchants set out from Ken­ney's
Fort near Austin to open a trade
route to Santa Fe. Among them was a
trouble-plagued musician, Alphonse Pi­sarenski.
On August 25, he was court­martialed
for stealing a sword, but was
later acquitted when the real thief con­fessed.
Soon after its arrival in New Mexi­co
the entire caravan was captured by
Mexican soldiers, marched to the interior
of Mexico, and incarcerated in Perote
Prison. There the men were held until
April, 1842. Pisarenski was last seen the
following August in Mexico City, where
he had remained because of ill health.
CARL G. VON IWONSKI
1845
Among the Poles who came to Texas in
its formative years, there were occasion­ally
men of a more reflective disposition,
such as Carl G. von Iwonski. This gifted
portrait artist was born in Silesia-the
Prussian-dominated zone of Poland-in
1830. His father, Leopold von Iwonski,
was a Prussian Army lieutenant who ap­proved
his son's early training in art at
Wroclaw (Breslau). In 1845 the family
was forced to migrate for political reasons.
They came with German Adelsverein set­tlers
to New Braunfels. The I wonskis
built one of the first log cabins there, and
young Carl painted a picture of it. He did
many watercolor and oil portraits and
pencil sketches of the unspoiled Tex;
countryside and its newly arrived inhabit­ants.
During the Civil War he lived in
San Antonio. He and Herman Lungkwitz
were partners in a commercial art and
photography business. Carl's pro-Union
sentiments were reflected in a series of
illustrations he sold to Harper's Weekly.
After the war he served as city tax col-
TEXAN-SANTA FE EXPEDITION, BY RANDY STEFFEN
lector from 1867 to 1870. His father, Leo­pold,
became Bexar County Treasurer in
1869. When Leopold died in 1872, Carl
took his mother, Maria Kalinowski­Tschirski
von Iwonski, back to Germany,
and continued his career in Berlin and
Wroclaw. He died in 1912, full of years
and honors.
Carroll, The Story of Texas
7
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Courtesy of Mrs. Lydia Roberts
ALEXANDER WERBISKI
Alexander Werbiski, a leading merchant
of Brownsville during the last half of the
19th century, was born in 1817 at War­saw,
Poland. He participated in the 1830
uprising, was captured and imprisoned,
and finally escaped to the United States.
He joined the American army as a private
in Company E, Second Regiment of the
U. S. Dragoons. During the Mexican War
he fought in the Battles of Palo Alto and
Resaca de la Palma in the Lower Rio
Grande Valley of Texas. After the war he
established a mercantile business in
Brownsville. He was elected a county
commissioner in 1852 and again in 1866.
For a year, in 1860, he was supply con­tractor
to John S. Ford's Texas Rangers
who were in the valley trying to quell
Juan Cortina's raiders. From 1861 to 1863
Werbiski served in the Ninth Texas Legis­lature
and, in 1872, he became the first
freely elected mayor of Brownsville after
Reconstruction. His public service ex­tended
beyond politics ; in 1870 he was a
charter director of the Rio Grande Rail­road
Company. He died at Brownsville
in 1890.
FLORIAN BRAUNEK
Florian Braunek, a soldier of fortune, ar­rived
with the Castroville settlers in 1846.
He had been an officer in the Prussian
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Gen. Land Office
Guards and the French Foreign Legion,
as well as the Egyptian and Greek armies.
Soon after his arrival at Castroville, Brau­nek
volunteered for service in the Mexi­can
War. In 1850 he was in the Texas
Rangers, serving along the Medina River,
and from 1855 until 1858 he was sheriff
of Medina County. He r etired from this
office because of ill h ealth. He became an
American citizen in 1860, but is said to
have r eturned to Europe later that year
and to have died in Poland in 1871.
ERASMUS A. FLORIAN
1847
In the eighteen-fifties, -sixties, and -seven­ties,
Erasmus Andrew Florian was a
prominent San Antonio businessman and
public official. Born in Zaslaw, Poland, in
1813, he was educated for a military ca­reer
at Warsaw and l\1oscow. At 17 he
was a Polish Army officer fighting Rus­sians
in the uprising of 1830. A year later
he was exiled to Austria. He made his
way to America in 1834. Florian reached
Texas in 1853, after a banking career in
New York and Memphis. On arrival in
San Antonio he established one of the first
insurance agencies in the state. Subse­quently
he became a partner in the
French and Florian Bank, and in the com­mission
business of Florian and Jefferson.
During the Civil War he served as a city
alderman. When the war ended he de­voted
himself entirely to the insurance
profession. He died in 1876, but his sons
and daughters continued the business for
another generation.
SAILING TO AMERICA
CHARLES BLAW I NSKI
1849
Poles shared in the dangers of taming the
wild Texas frontier. In June 1849 Charles
Blawinski, a teamster in a San Antonio­bound
supply train, was mortally wound­ed.
by the Comanches in an ambush at
Dead Man's Pass in the Davis Mountains.
The attack began at two o'clock in the
afternoon and lasted until the next morn­ing.
Blawinski lived most of the night in
agony and was buried on the site after his
death at sunrise. The survivors had their
position reinforced with the appearance
of a Mexican wagon-train on the morning
of the second day, but relief came only
with the arrival of soldiers that evening.
T HE NEW I MMIGRANTS
1850's
Until the 1850's Texas' Poles had come
singly, or in small groups, as refugees
from the Napoleonic debacle, or the un­successful
insurrection of 1830-1831
against Russia. These people were sol­diers,
students, or professional men for the
most part. Beginning in the 1850's, the
Illustrated London News, April13, 1844
pace of Polish immigration substantially
increased. Now came farmers and small
businessmen fleeing poverty, cultural
harassment, and religious persecution by
the Prussians, Austrians, and Russians. A
series of natural disasters in Silesia (Pros­sian-
occupied Poland) further stimulated
the exodus. A typhoid and cholera epi­demic
in 1851 was followed in 1854 by
devastating floods which produced a crit­ical
food shortage. It was these fugitives
from injustice and natural disaster who
would have the greatest Polish influence
upon Texas.
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THE REV. LEOPOLD MOCZYGEMBA
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THE REVEREND
LEOPOLD MOCZYGEMBA
1851
The man most responsible for the new
Polish migration to Texas was a young
Franciscan priest named Leopold Moczy­gemba,
who came about 1851 to serve the
Germans of New Braunfels. Born in 1824
at Wielka Pluznica, Upper Silesia, he re­ceived
much of his education in Italy, and
was received into the Franciscan Order in
1849. Later, while studying in Germany,
he volunteered for missionary service
among the German Texans. On reaching
New Braunfels he quickly recognized the
opportunities awaiting those who could
seize them. He wrote glowing letters to
relatives and friends in Silesia, urging
them to organize in groups, sell their pos­sessions,
and sail for Texas. Among the
first to land at Galveston in 1854 were his
father and brothers; however, the would­be
colonists found it difficult to share Fa­ther
Leopold's enthusiasm for Texas. A
yellow fever epidemic was raging on
shore, and the long inland trek to their
settlement on the San Antonio River was
a miserable one. With Father Leopold
guiding them, they reached their land on
Christmas Eve 1854, and promptly cele­brated
mass under a spreading oak tree.
(This tree still stands and is much cher­ished
by the present-day residents of
Panna Maria) . Soon the discomforts of
famine, exposure, and disease caused re­sentment
among the colonists, and Father
Leopold bore its brunt. The story is told
that Father Leopold once invited some of
the new arrivals for dinner. After hearing
many complaints and lamentations, he
assured them that the worst experiences
were over, and invited them to begin their
meal. At that exact moment a rattlesnake
fell from the thatched roof into the soup.
Moczygemba left Texas in 1856. Two
years later he became the first Commis­sary
General of the Conventual Francis­cans
in the United States. Except for short
visits to Panna Maria in 1874 and 1877,
he worked in Kentucky, New York, Illi­nois,
and Michigan. At Detroit in 1885
Father Leopold and Father Joseph Do­browski-
another early Polish priest in
Texas-established the oldest Polish
American institution of higher learning:
Saint Mary's College of Saints Cyril and
Methodius Seminary. Today, Moczygem­ba
is remembered as the instigator of
large-scale Polish immigration to Texas,
and as founder of the first Polish colony
in America. He died in 1891.
PANNA MARIA
1854
On October 7, 1854, a small but signifi­cant
article appeared in Gwiazdka Cies­zynska,
a Polish newspaper: "On Septem­ber
26 there arrived in Berlin by train
150 Poles from Upper Silesia, and the
next afternoon left by Cologne railroad
for Bremen, from where they intend to
sail for Texas. This is a noteworthy item,
for as it is known, Slavic peoples are so
attached to their native soil that immigra­tion
among them is rather unusual." This
first organized group of Polish immi­grants
to America sailed on board the
W eser and reached Galveston on Decem- CHURCH OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION AT PANNA MARIA Archdiocese of San Antonio
II
12
ber 3. The voyage required nine weeks.
Upon landing, these woebegone people
started on foot for their new home. In
1932 L. B. Russell recalled watching that
pilgrimage; he was a small boy, but the
memory was vivid: "The arrival of the
colony was one of the most picturesque
scenes of my boyhood. The highway be­tween
Port Lavaca and San Antonio
passed directly in .front of our home. The
crowd wore the costumes of the old coun­try.
Many of the women had very short
skirts, showing their limbs two or three
inches above the ankle [!]. Some had on
wooden shoes and, almost without excep­tion,
all wore broad-brimmed, low­crowned
black felt hats, nothing like the
hats that were worn in Texas. They also
wore blue jackets of heavy woolen cloth,
falling just below the waist and gathered
into folds at the back with a band of the
same material."
On Christmas Eve these families ar­rived
at the confluence of the San Antonio
River and Cibolo Creek, and established
the village of Panna Maria on land that
Father Leopold Moczygemba had pur­chased
from John Twohig, an Irish mer­chant
of San Antonio. Their voyage had
been filled with sickness, hardship. and
disappointment, and the sight which now
confronted them offered little hope. To a
people familiar with a well ordered land­scape,
the scrubby brush country looked
desolate indeed. That first night was a
struggle to find sleep and warmth under
the blustery winter skies. At midnight
Father Leopold celebrated the traditional
Christmas mass beneath a large oak tree.
The observance became a prayer of
thanksgiving for survival. Some of the
people, unable to cope with the situation,
returned to settled communities-such as
Victoria, Meyersville, and Yorktown­through
which they had passed on the
way to this melancholy site. The follow­ing
year the little band of pioneers at
Panna Maria was joined by another
group of 700. Sturdy stone houses, monu­ments
to patience and hard labor, began
to rise in the new village. A third wave
of Polish immigrants in 1856 brought
from their church in the old country a
bell which eve~ tod}l.Y calls the faithful
to worship. The steady stream of settlers
spilled over onto land adjoining the Pan­na
Maria parish. Thus it became the
mother colony of such places as St. Hed­wig,
Cestohowa, Kosciusko, Pawelekville,
and Falls City. In 1910 Stefan Nestero­wicz
found comfort in Panna Maria's
status as a quiet, nearly deserted village:
"The uproar of a big town would only be
a desecration of this secluded nook,
drenched with sweat and tears of the
exiles who sought shelter from poverty
and oppression and wanted no more than
freedom and a piece of bread."
THE KIOLBASSA FAMILY
Among those arriving at Panna Maria in
1854 were the Kiolbassa family from
Swibie, Silesia. The father, Stanislaus,
had been a member of the Prussian As­sembly
at Berlin in 1847 and 1848, but he
wished to give his children new oppor­tunity
in a new land. In Texas the Kiol-bassas
soon moved from Panna Maria, be­cause
of its unhealthy conditions. They
settled next near Castroville, then moved
finally to San Antonio in 1858, after a
prolonged drought had driven them from
their farm. They had hoped for a quiet
life, but the Civil War came, and all of
the sons of fighting age joined the Con­federate
Army. Later, one son, Peter,
switched sides and became a captain of
the 6th U.S. Colored Cavalry in the Union
forces. When the war was over Peter
settled in Chicago, where he remained­except
for a brief interlude of school
teaching at Panna Maria in 1870. Back
in Chicago by 1872, he organized the first
Polish parish and held various public of­fices
as a Democrat. He last served as
Chicago's Commissioner of Public Works
from 1902 to 1904. He died in 1905. His
brothers, Frank and Bernard, became suc­cessful
businessmen in San Antonio. As a
young man, Bernard realized the value of
education, and enrolled in St. Mary's Col­lege.
He quit after only 30 days, because
the pace of instruction wasn't fast enough
to suit him. He obtained a job as a waiter
at the Menger Hotel and pored over his
books at night. Soon he established a
grocery and dry goods store in partner­ship
with another Pole, Ferdinand Kotula.
This enterprise lasted from 1865 to 1890.
Bernard also served as Bexar County Com­missioner
from 1888 to 1890. For many
years Frank Kiolbassa was the operator of
a well-known tavern on Austin Street.
The entire Kiolbassa family were devout
supporters of St. Michael's Polish parish
and its societies.
~
- I
THE BERNARD KIOLBASSA FAMILY Courtesy of Mrs. A. B. Stephens
THE POLES OF BANDERA
1855
Sixteen Polish families came to Panna
Maria in 1855 and found the choice land
already taken. They were seeking acreage
at Castroville when Charles de Montel
persuaded them to settle in Bandera
where they could be assured of employ­ment
at his saw- and shingle mill. He
furnished them oxcarts in which to haul
their possessions. On arriving at Bandera
the men worked for de Montel and
cleared their own land, while the women
helped with the cultivation and dug the
race for a gristmill owned by the Mor­mons.
The Bandera Poles often were ex­posed
to attack on this Indian frontier, but
with stern resolve, they erected a church,
St. Stanislaus, in 1858. It became the sec­ond
oldest Polish church in America. At
first the pulpit was filled by visiting
priests, but in 1866 the Reverend Clemens
Kucharczyk of the Resurrectionist Order
was permanently assigned. Ten years
later a sturdy rock church replaced the
old log house. In 18 7 4 a Polish parochial
school was opened by the Sisters of the
Immaculate Conception. Today the Poles
of Bandera prosper as farmers and ranch­ers.
SAN ANTONIO'S
POLISH COLONY
By the late-1850's the bulk of Polish mi­gration
was to San Antonio, rather than
to Panna Maria, where fewer jobs were
available. By 1860 there was a well de­fined
neighborhood of more than 200
Poles. At first they expected to carry on
13
14
ST. ALBERT'S SOCIETY
agricultural enterprises, but poor soil
made this impractical; so, they drifted in­to
local industry, commerce, and handi­craft
trades. Their spiritual needs were
served by the Reverend Leopold Moczy­gemba,
but after his departure, visiting
priests assumed the task. In 1866, the Rev­erend
Vincent Barzynski organized St.
Michael's Polish parish, but not until
1871 was the first church built. Mean­while,
the congregation had met in a sin-gle-
story rock structure at Matagorda and
Goliad Streets. In 1868 San Antonio Poles
organized St. Albert's Mutual Aid Society
for the purpose of providing burial insur­ance
and survivor assistance. It was the
first such benevolent society to be formed
by the Poles in America. A parochial
school was established in 1873, but by this
time the San Antonio colony began de­creasing,
as many Polish families bought
land near St. Hedwig. Those who re-
~----- -- --- - -- -- - l
--, I
I
Courtesy of Mrs. A. B. Stephens
mained prospered in a variety of business­es-
from butchering, blacksmithing and
shoemaking to dry goods, insurance, and
banking. But Polish life in the Alamo
City continued to center around St.
Michael's Church until the church was
denationalized in 1947. The structure it­self
was razed to make way for Hemisfair
'68. A new building was erected not far
away, but it is no longer predominately
Polish.
CHARLES RADZIMINSKI
Soldier, engineer, and surveyor, Charles
Radziminski left an indelible mark on
Texas through his talents and courage.
He was a well educated engineer with a
distinguished record as an officer in the
Polish army. The futile Polish uprising
against Russia in 1831 ended Radzimin­ski's
career in his native land. After a
brief sojourn in Austria, he was deported
to America in 1834. He became a civil
engineer with the James River Kanawha
Canal Company in Virginia. but when
the Mexican War began, he left this em­ployment
to become a lieutenant in the
Third U. S. Dragoons. After the war he
was a member of the commission to sur­vey
the new boundary between the Unit­ed
States and Mexico. When this assign­ment
was finished in 1855, he rejoined
the army as a first lieutenant in the Sec­ond
U. S. Cavalry, and led troops on the
Texas frontier against the Kiowas and Co­manches.
During one of these expeditions
he died near Fort Belknap on September
18, 1858. Camp Radziminski, an impor­tant
military outpost on the Oklahoma
border, was named in his honor.
KALIKST WOLSKI
For his book Do Ameryki i w Ameryce
(To America and in America), Kalikst
Wolski is remembered as the first Polish
travel writer in Texas. He was born in
1816 of a genteel family in the hamlet of
Potoczek and was educated at Warsaw. In
1830 he joined the uprising against Rus­sia,
after which he escaped to France. He
studied engineering and soon was in-volved
in various railroad building proj­ects.
Like many high-spirited young Euro­peans
of his day, Wolski was fascinated
by socialism. When Louis Napoleon
seized power in December, 1851 , Wolski
quickly left France. From 1852 until1860
he traveled widely in America, coming to
Texas for six months in 1855 as a guide
for the first colonists reaching the La Re­union
settlement near Dallas. His com­ments
about that utopian colony provide
interesting footnotes to Texas history. The
odyssey began at New Orleans, where
Wolski was repelled by the slave auction
being conducted in the lobby of his hotel.
He immediately moved to another hotel
at which there was "no traffic in anything
except breakfasts. dinners, and roo~s for
BOUNDARY SURVEY TEAM
travelers." Wolski and the La Reunion
contingent then proceeded by steamer to
Houston. The channel from the coast to
Houston then was so primitive that "our
ship took up the entire width of the chan­nel.
touching the bank on either side, so
that one could get off and on without any
trouble every hundred steps, without even
having to jump." The port itself was so
small that "seldom, and then only for a
short time. are two vessels found at the
dock at once." After arriving at La Re­union.
Wolski served briefly as interpreter
and business agent for the colonists there.
Soon he was on his way to visit other
points of interest in Texas. His memoirs
appeared in 1876, and were serialized for
a wide audience in Poland.
The Emory Report
15
16
POLISH WEDDING AT ST. HEDWIG
ST. HEDWIG
1857
One of the first Polish communities esta b­lished
after Panna Maria was St. Hedwig,
near San Antonio. About 13 families from
the 1855 migration settled on lands be­longing
to John Demmer, a German. The
immigrants brought their tools and wag­ons
from Poland, and soon had construct-ed
thatch-roofed log cabins. They named
their settlement for the patron saint of
Silesia. Their first log church, The An­nunciation
of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
was built in 1857 and later replaced with
a stone structure in 1868. A resident
priest, the Reverend Felix Orzechowski,
was assigned in 1866. At first the settlers
planted com and raised cattle. After 1865
Courtesy of Mr. & Mrs. Emil Mikolayczk
they turned chiefly to cotton farming. Cot­ton
production continued there on a large
scale until the early 20th century. St.
Hedwig's original settlers were joined by
later immigrants and by Polish families
who moved out from San Antonio in the
1870's. By the turn of the century St. Hed­wig
had the second largest Polish con­centration
in Texas.
POLES IN THE CIVIL WAR
1861
At the outset of the Civil War an estimated
1500 Poles lived in Texas. Although they
were recently arrived, and had little in
common with slave-owning Southerners,
many of them joined Confe_derate ranks.
A few appeared in the Union army. At
least one, Peter Kiolbassa of San Antonio"
resolved matters by fighting on both
sides! The Panna Maria Greys, composed
of Polish and Anglo volunteers. held a
week-long training encampment on the
banks of Cibolo Creek, then were mus­tered
into Confederate service on July 4.
1861. This cavalry unit saw action in Tex­as,
Arkansas, and Louisiana. Other Polish
Texans served in Home Guard units. The
fortifications at Galveston, Sabine Pass,
Velasco, and Quintana all were planned
by another Pole. Confederate Colonel Va­lerian
Sulakowski, an able engineer of the
14th Louisiana Infantry.
BERNARD AND
BENJAMIN KOWALSKI
Like many Polish soldiers Bernard Kowal­ski
came to fight and returned to build.
He reached America in 1841 from his
native Inowraclaw, Poland, and settled in
New Orleans as a merchant. He enlisted
in· the Washington Artillery to serve in
the Mexican War, and when the war end­ed,
rushed to California seeking gold. Un­successful
in this quest, he soon came back
to New Orleans. After a disastrous fire in
1861 , Kowalski moved his business to
Brownsville. He served as a major of
artillery. in the Confederate army and
1t..
•"
BERNARD KOWALSKI
Courtesy of Mrs. Alex Kowalski
helped to defend Fort Brown. At the time
of his death in 1889 he was the sire of a
large and public-spirited clan. His son,
Benjamin, became an apprentice in his
father's store at 14. He was Brownsville's
postmaster from 1886 to 1890, and mayor
from 1910 to 1912. When Benjamin died
in 1923, he was survived by six sons" all
of whom became World War I veterans
and active Masons. One was a construc­tion
engineer" two were oil company ex­ecutives,
two were insurancemen, and one
a lawyer.
POLISH IMMIGRATION
AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
1865
After the Civil War came the largest
wave of Polish immigration, mostly to
East Central Texas. Thousands of these
BENJAMIN KOWALSKI
Courtesy of R. C. SchmPling
people-mainly from Austrian Galicia
and Prussian Silesia-sought to escape
poverty. and politicaL cultural, and re­ligious
oppression. The Russians, too, be­came
particularly brutal toward the Poles
after an uprising in 1863. Many Polish
families in search of escape had their pas­sage
paid in exchange for two years' labor.
At Navasota. for example. local planters
commissioned a Polish storekeeper to send
to his native land for immigrants to work
as farm laborers. Some of the arrivals
found employment in East Texas saw­mills.
while others became cotton farm
tenants. Some eventually were able to
acquire large acreages of their own in the
area from Houston northwestward to
Marlin. By 1880 Texas had 17 Polish
Catholic parishes-more than any other
state.
17
18
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THE REV. ADOLF BAKANOWSKI
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RESURRECTIONIST
MISSIONARIES IN TEXAS
1866
As Texas' Polish colonies grew, Roman
Catholic Bishop Claude M. Dubuis of Gal­veston
brought Polish missionaries to
Texas. Most of these came from the Resur­rectionist
Order founded in Paris in 1842.
In the 16th century Franciscan priests
had opened the mission field in Texas; in
the 19th, it was a Franciscan, Father
Leopold Moczygemba, who brought the
first Polish colony. But after the Civil
War the field was given up to the Resur­rectionists,
insofar as the Poles were con­cerned.
Among the first of the new Order
to arrive were the Reverends Felix Zwiar­dowski,
Vincent Barzynski, Felix Orze­chowski,
and Clemens Kucharczyk. These
came in 1866 and served parishes at Pan­na
Maria, San Antonio, Bandera, Saint
Hedwig, and Yorktown. The Reverend
Adolf Bakanowski, the first Vicar-General
of Polish Missions in Texas, was head­quartered
at Panna Maria from 1866 to
1870. Bakanowski's memoirs, originally
published in his native Lwow in 1913,
give an entertaining view of frontier Tex­as
as seen through Polish eyes. As Poles
continued settling in Texas after the Civil
War, other priests of their nationality fol­lowed.
The Resurrectionists withdrew
from the mission field in 1880-only 14
years after they were installed here.
TROUBLESOME TIMES
The different language, dress, and cus­toms
of the early Polish settlers frequent­ly
made them victims of prejudice, cruel
jokes, and unscrupulous business deal­ings.
Frederic L. Olmstead, a traveler
through Texas in 1857, points out that
Panna Maria Poles were charged an ex­orbitant
$5 to $10 per acre for land in
1854. Even the $2.00 paid at Saint Hed­wig
three years later was considered high.
Unsettled conditions after the Civil War,
and the absence of effective government,
made it possible for lawless elements to
abuse the Polish colonists with little fear
of reprisal. In his memoirs Father Adolf
Bakanowski of Panna Maria recalled
what happened: "The Texan Americans.
particularly the cowboys with little train­ing
and less education, knew only how to
ride horse-back. The higher class of
Americans, used to the services of the
negro slave, were very slow in mastering
the art of earning one's own bread. The
lower class, misunderstanding the new
freedom which the looseness of the gov­ernment
permitted, killed and murdered
for any provoking reason. In a word, we
hit very hard times. The Polish people
became an object of frequent attacks. See­ing
that the Polander could not speak
English, it seemed to them that he should
be subject to the same treatment as the
negro. Whether traveling or at home, we
had no peace; not even the church was
free of their antics. These cowboys en­tered
the church during the services with
their hats on and smoking cigarettes. One
of them wanted to ride into the church on
horseback and see how many targets he
could score on the walls." A climax was
reached when a band of cowboys swooped
into Panna Maria and promptly shot up
the town. The Poles retaliated by riding
en masse to the county seat at Helena in a
show of force. A few weeks later the in­vaders
came again to Panna Maria, and
there was another exchange of shots be­fore
they were chased away. The next
confrontation was far more serious. After
Sunday morning services the Polish con­gregation
stepped from their church to
view a large group of armed horsemen,
and-nearby-ten wagons filled with on­looking
wives and daughters. Father Ba­kanowski
met the challenge by threaten­ing
to fire upon the wagons. Caught by
surprise, the aggressors quickly cleared
the erstwhile battlefield. ·A lasting truce
was achieved when soldiers from San An­tonio
arrived to maintain order, in 18'69.
THE REVEREND
FELIX ZWIARDOWSKI
Said to have been a Russian general be­fore
entering the priesthood, the Reverend
Felix Zwiardowski was one of the
best-known Resurrectionist missionaries
among the Polish Texans. He came to
Texas as a seminarian in 1866, and was
ordained in Galveston the following year.
He celebrated his first mass at Panna
Maria in the course of a five-day Polish
festival. In the early days he was said to
own a repeating rifle with which he
fought off Indian attacks during his mis­sionary
travels on the frontier. A staunch
believer in education, and wholehearted­ly
devoted to the interests of his people, he
was Superior of Polish missions in Texas
from 1870 until1875. At Panna Maria in
1873 he organized the Sisters of the Im-
THE REV. FELIX ZWIARDOWSKI
Arcluliocese of San Antonio
maculate Conception to teach in parish
schools. Four years later he pushed con­struction
of the second church building in
that community. When the project was
finished, exactly 70¢ remained in the
treasury. Later Zwiardowski was sta­tioned
at St. Hedwig, San Antonio, and
Cestohowa. Crusty and independent, he
refused to leave the Texas mission field
when so ordered by his superiors. How­ever,
he did spend the greater part of a
year in Chicago recovering his health. In
November 1880 Father Leopold Moczy­gemba
wrote that Zwiardowski had come
there a very sick man, but "now his ap­petite
is Lithuanian and he eats the
measure of three." On his return to Texas
Father Felix continued to serve as a mis­sionary
priest until his death in 1895.
19
THE REVEREND
VINCENT BARZYNSKI
In 1863 the Poles launched another dis­astrous
uprising against the Russians,
and again thousands of people were up­rooted.
One of these was the Reverend
Vincent Barzynski, born at Sulislawice,
Poland, in 1838. He studied at Lublin and
was ordained in 1861. Upon leaving Po­land,
he stayed briefly in Austria and
France before joining the Resurrectionist
Order and coming to Texas in 1866. He
became the first resident Polish priest in
San Antonio, where he instigated the con­struction
of St. Michael's Church. In
1873-1874 Barzynski served at St. Hed­wig,
then transferred to Chicago, where
he worked among Polish immigrants for
the next 25 years. One of his first acts in
his new surroundings was to help or­ganize
the Polish Roman Catholic Union.
He became Superior of the Chicago Res­surectionists,
and the first Provincial of
that Order in America. He was a com­manding
figure in Polish American his­tory
until his death on May 2, 1899.
Our Polish Pioneers
ST. JOSEPH'S SCHOOL
AT PANNA MARIA
America's oldest Polish school was organ­ized
by the priests at Panna Maria in
1866. At first some of the classes were
held in a shed room adjoining the church,
but within two years parishioners had
constructed a two-story stone building to
serve as a rectory and school. The parents
insisted that their children learn Polish
as well as English; so, when the teaching
Sisters of the Order of Divine Providence
arrived from Castroville, their first task
s . ~ H·. Sw J auH
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was learning to speak Polish! In time, the
Sisters of the Order of Divine Providence
were replaced by the Sisters of the Im­maculate
Conception-Panna Maria girls
who devoted themselves to teaching in
Polish. Although their Order soon disap­peared,
parochial education became a fea­ture
of every Polish parish in Texas, a
situation which helped perpetuate the
language and traditions of these people.
Today St. Joseph's School houses the Pan­na
Maria Historical Association and Mu­seum-
the nucleus of Polish ethnic his­torical
preservation in Texas.
I
NEW WAVERLY
1867
The first Polish foothold in East Texas
was at New Waverly, an early lumbering
and farming community in the Hunts­ville
area. Landing at Galveston about
1867, the settlers at New Waverly worked
in sawmills, or as tenant farmers, until
they could become landowners. Some of
them came under contract to work for
two years in order to pay their passage.
In 1870 St. Joseph's parish was organized
under the Reverend Felix Orzechowski, a
Resurrectionist missionary. The original
parish included 42 families. A church was
built in 1876, a second in the 1890's, and
a third in 1906. In 1908 a parish school
was established to teach the three R's,
homemaking, and vocational agriculture.
The farmers of New Waverly soon spread
over the face of Walker County and
spilled into Grimes, Washington, and
Robertson Counties. Like the Poles of Ban­dera,
those at New Waverly retain little
of their native language and traditions.
JOSEPH COTULLA
1868
The cattle boom which swept the country
after the Civil War caught the imagina­tion
of the Poles, too. In 1865 the Panna
Maria post office recorded 49 Polish­owned
brands in that county alone. To
the west, Cotulla, a ranching and trade
center for a wide area of South Texas, was
named for a pioneer who carved a ranch­ing
empire from Nueces Valley brush
country. This county seat town was laid
out by Joe Cotulla in 1881-1882, when JOSEPH COTULLA Courtesy of Mrs. Bruce Tiller
21
22
the International and Great Northern
Railroad built through his ranch. When
Joe Cotulla was born in 1844, his birth­place,
Wielkie Strzelce, was occupied by
the Kingdom of Prussia. Cotulla brought
his widowed mother and grandmother to
Texas to join members of the family who
had arrived at Panna Maria with the first
wave of immigrants. The family soon
moved to Los Gallinas in Atascosa Coun­ty,
where young Cotulla worked as a farm
laborer until the Civil War erupted. In
1863 he joined the Union Army at
Brownsville as a private in the First Regi­ment,
Texas Volunteer Cavalry, and
served in Louisiana until mustered out at
San Antonio in 1865. In 1868 Cotulla left
Atascosa County to begin farming and
ranching in present La Salle, Webb, and
Dimmit Counties. To obtain a dependable
water supply for his cattle, he drilled one
of the first artesian wells in that region.
When the drillers struck oil, he instructed
them to dig deeper. After all, he ex­plained,
his cattle could not drink oil. In
later years he served as a La Salle County
commissioner. His daughter, Caroline, be­came
postmistress at Cotulla, while a
grandson was a long-time mayor. Joe
Cotulla died in 19Z3.
ED KOTULA
1869
After the Civil War two young Polish im­migrants
met at San Antonio's historic
Menger Hotel to flip a coin. They agreed
that the loser would change the spelling
of his name. Both men were the same age
and from the same part of Poland. Both
had settled in the first Polish colony at
Panna Maria, but neither had remained
there. Both had been compelled to support
their families at an early age. Through
hard work, saving, and investing, both
became prosperous. But a problem arose
because both had the same name-Ko­tula.
Joe Cotulla lost the coin toss, and Ed
Kotula kept the original spelling. Joe al­ways
claimed victory, however, because
"C" was easier to write than "K." In the
1890's Ed Kotula-San Antonio-based
merchant, capitalist, and rancher-was
known as the "Wool King of Texas." Born
in Prussian-occupied Poland in 1844, he
was only ten when h!# came with his par­ents
to Panna Maria. A year later his
father died, and the family ~oved to San
Antonio, where Ed briefly attended St.
Mary's College, then went to work haul-
THE ED KOTULAS Courtesy Mrs. A. B. Stephens
ing building stone. During the Civil War
he carried the Confederate mail to Boerne
and Victoria. When hostilities ended he
began clerking for the D and A Oppen­heimer
mercantile firm. In 1869 Kotula
opened his own store in an adobe building
at Alamo and Commerce Streets. Later he
moved to a larger building on the west
side of Military Plaza, where he re­mained
until 1893, when he became a
wool buyer. Kotula also acquired ranch
lands in Webb and Dimmit Counties, on
which he raised Durham and Hereford
cattle. He was a faithful member of St.
Michael's Polish Catholic Church, and St.
Albert's Polish Societv until his death at
San Antonio in 1893.
POLES AT MARLIN
AND BREMOND
1870
Polish farmers arrived in eastern Falls
County by 1870. Usually they were share­croppers
until they could save enough
money to buy their own land. Under the
tenant system they commonly paid $3.00
per acre rent, or gave the landlord one­third
of the crop. Peter Gorski, who set­tled
at Marlin in 1880, was typical of
those who struggled to become landown­ers.
He worked rented land for ZZ years
before saving enough money to buy 100
acres for $4500. About 60 Polish families
lived in the vicinity of Marlin between
1870 and 1880, when their numbers de­clined
as the result of malarial conditions.
Many drifted southward into Robertson
County, where they helped make Bre­mond
the largest Polish town in Texas.
BREMOND STREET SCENE, 1907
Bremond was a railroad boomtown when
the first Polish settler arrived in 1875.
This was Joseph Bartula, a farm laborer,
who had sailed to Texas with his wife
and five sons two years before. In the
course of that trip he lost three sons and
all his money. Bartula was soon joined at
Bremond by 50 more families of his na-tionality.
By 1900 most of them owned
their own farms, or their own businesses
in the community. As in all Polish colo­nies,
the church played a vital role. At
first, services were conducted in private
homes by visiting priests. A church was
completed in 1879, with heavy financial
contributions from some non-Polish resi-
Courtesy of Joseph Kotch, Sr.
dents. It has been rebuilt twice since. A
parish school has been maintained since
the first decade of the 20th century. St.
Joseph's Society-Texas' first chapter of
the Polish National Alliance-was
formed at Bremond in 1889, followed
three years later by a chapter of the Polish
Roman Catholic Union.
I.
23
24
Courtesy of Mrs. Mary B. Stanush
IGNATIUS BURDA
1872
An elder statesman of the San Antonio
Polish colony, Ignatius Burda, sired a
large and talented family after coming to
Texas in 1872. Born and educated in
Prussian Poland. Burda was an officer of
the Prussian army in the war against
France. After the fall of Paris he visited
a brother in Yorktown, Texas, and soon
elected to stay in America. After a brief
teaching career at Yorktown, he moved to
San Antonio and became purchasing
agent for several wholesale produce mer­chants.
An amateur horticulturist, Bur­da's
great love of books and culture were
well-known. His children acquired goo~
libraries, and became leaders in the San
Antonio Polish community. They were
educators, businessmen, and ranchers. A
grandson became an atomic scientist, an­other
a book illustrator, and a third­Claude
Stanush-a noted freelance writer
and college instructor.
SISTERS OF THE
IMMACULATE
CONCEPTION
1873
The need for Polish-speaking teachers in
parochial schools led Father Felix Zwiar­dowski
to organize the Sisters of the Im-
..
ST. HEDWIG PARISH SCHOOL
maculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
Mary ~t Panna Maria in 1873. Often
called the "Blue Veiled Sisters" because
of the color of their habits, they held their
first investiture in 1875 with seven sisters
and eight novices. Eventually there were
about 30 of these nuns teaching in Polish
schools. In 1878 the Sisters moved their
headquarters to St. Hedwig, where they
disbanded in 1881. Many went into other
orders, while Sisters of the Incarnate
Word took their place in the parish
schools.
:..
Courtesy of Anton Dylla
CESTOHOWA
Near Panna Maria lies the farming com­munity
of Cestohowa-a misspelling of
Czestochowa, one of the most holy places
in Poland. The Karnes County settlement
was established by families who moved
from Panna Maria in search of good
farmland. By 1875 Cestohowa had the in­evitable
church and school, a cotton gin,
a few stores, and over 1 70 families. The
school, St. Joseph's, was built in 1873, and
also served as a chapel. A church building
was completed in 1877, and was called
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The congregation was first served by
Father Zwiardowski. Soon the new settle­ment
and its church overshadowed near­by
Panna Maria. In time, Cestohowa gave
birth to such communities as Falls City,
Poth, Kosciusko, and Pawelekville, where
large families sought additional land.
THE POLES OF ANDERSON
1876
Thousands of Polish farmers homestead­ed
the Texas blackland during the 1870's.
At the old town of Anderson over 100
Polish families had settled by 1880. Their
children attended a Polish school on week
days and worshipped in the St. Stanislaus
Church on Sunday. At first a mission of
New Waverly parish, the Anderson
church itself later had missions among
the Polish farm families at Plantersville
and Stoneham. The German settlers at
Brenham began welcoming Polish neigh­bors
in the 1870's. The rolling farmland
at Chappell Hill was another haven for
these people. Eventually the families
ANDERSON
there spread out to Bellville, Sealy. Rich­mond,
and Rosenberg. Bryan also had
Polish settlers after 18 7 3. Beginning as
farmers and small businessmen, these
refugees from Austrian Galicia and Pros­sian
Poland soon established themselves
as essential and prominent members of
their communities.
DR. STEFAN WAGNER
MIECZKOWSKI
The bulk of Polish immigrants to Texas
after the Civil War were farmers, but pro-
I. T. C. Collection
fessional men also appeared in their
ranks. An example of the latter was Dr.
Stefan Wagner Mieczkowski. Born at Be­lencin.
Poland, in 1853, he came to Texas
in 1876 as a school teacher. While work­ing
in a San Antonio drugstore he became
interested in medicine, and decided to
pursue the profession. He attended St.
Louis Medical School and, upon gradua­tion,
returned to Texas to practice in Bell­ville,
New Waverly, Bremond, and final­ly
in Houston, where he became a major
real estate promoter and a power in the
Polish community.
I
i'
25
26
LEONARD W. ORYNSKI
1880
In the 1880's Leonard Orynski was a
prominent San Antonio pharmacist and
real estate developer. Born in Leczyca.
Poland, in 1845, he fled his homeland
after the revolution of 1863. Arriving in
France he joined the army there and
came to Mexico with the forces of Maxi­milian
in 1864. When the French were
thrown out of Mexico in 1867, Orynski
came to San Antonio. Here, he raised a
large family and pursued a successful
business career. In the early 1880's he
operated a drug company on Military
Plaza. Still imbued with a spirit of ad­venture
in middle age. he prospected for
gold in Baja California. He died there,
and is buried at La Paz.
Courtesy of Mrs. Maury Maverick
-;:;;;:
• J.. { ~ l~ht.L:L~~
~~-{~L'\J ---- -~---
ICED BEER ARRIVING AT FALLS CITY, 1910
FALLS CITY
1884
The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Rail­road
reached Karnes City in the 1880's,
and in its wake left the Polish settlement
of Falls City. Its inhabitants were drawn
largely from the business communities
of Panna Maria and Cestohowa. Soon
Falls City had several stores, a bank. a
cotton gin, a lumber yard, and an ample
number of taverns. In 1902, 70 families
built the Holy Trinity Church, and Fa­ther
S. Przyborowski became the first
pastor. Falls City is still an active farm
trading center.
·----­t:
OOL hALL
Courtesy of Ray Pollok
POLISH COAL MINERS
AT THURBER
1886
In 1886 the Johnson Coal Mining Com­pany
opened mines in the little Erath
County town of Thurber. Over 150 Polish
coal miners-some from the old country,
others, second generation Poles from the
coal fields of Pennsylvania-worked at
Thurber in its heyday. They were the
second largest ethnic group in this boom­town,
and the only example of Poles en­tering
Texas in large numbers expressly
to work in industry. The Texas Pacific
Coal Company bought the properties in
1888 and operated Thurber as a company
town. Soon after the turn of the centurv J
Thurber became the only 100 percent
union town in America. The population
included all nationalities. The Poles add­ed
their own brand of color and tradition
to the scene. They held their wedding
celebrations at a local dance halL where
there was a stack of cheap dinner plates
in one corner of the room. For the privi­lege
of dancing with the bride or her at­tendants,
a man was required to throw a
silver coin with sufficient force to break
a plate. A different coin had to be used
each time until the plate was broken.
Silver dollars were recommended. The
money was given to the bride to spend as
she wished. When the mines closed in
1921 some of the Poles moved to New­castle,
Texas, or to Paris, Arkansas, to
work in the mines there. Others became
laborers in the stockyards at Fort Worth,
and a few settled four miles north of
Thurber at the town of Strawn. where
they opened businesses.
THE POLISH NATIONAL
ALLIANCE IN TEXAS
1889
The Polish National Alliance, a fraternal
organization, was founded in 1880. Its
first Texas lodge (No. 128) was estab­lished
at Bremond in 1889. This lodge is
still the scene of dances, receptions, and
other activities of the Bremond Poles. To­day
the Alliance has 12 lodges in Texas
located in Houston, San Antonio, Fort
Worth, Chappell Hill, Panna Maria, Bre­mond,
El Paso, Bryan, Karnes City, and
Yorktown. These provide the setting for
social and charitable work, educational
and civic projects, folk dances and patri­otic
dinners. The observance of Polish
Constitution Day on May 3 is one of the
more popular activities of the P.N.A.
lodges in Texas.
HOUSTON'S POLISH
COLONY
1891
Houston has the largest Polish concentra-
BREMOND'S POLISH NATIONAL ALLIANCE
tion in Texas. Polish immigration to that
region was greatly stimulated by the 1863
uprising against Russia, and again by im­migrants
of the 1870's who sought em­ployment
in the growing city, rather than
on farms to the north and west. A P .N.A.
lodge, the Society of Thaddeus Kosciusz­ko,
was founded there in 1891. The Polish
colony has continued to grow as Polish
children have left the family farms of
Central Texas to seek their fortune in the
metropolis.
Courtesy of Joseph Kotch, Sr.
27
MSGR. THOMAS MOCZYGEMBA Courtesy of John Dziuk
28
MONSIGNOR THOMAS
MOCZYGEMBA
In 1891 Thomas Moczygemba, the neph­ew
of Father Leopold, became the first
native Polish Texan to be ordained to the
priesthood. He was born at Panna Maria
on December 11, 1863, the son of Joseph
and Caroline Moczygemba. On attaining
the priesthood he served first at Victoria,
next at Panna Maria (1891-1897), then
at Yorktown (1897-1912). One Polish
historian relates that men of the York­town
congregation invariably found it
necessary to leave the church during the
sermon, the excuse being that "the horses
are restless and are liable to break up the
old buggy." According to this source the
practice ceased when Father Tom arrived,
and "even the jackasses listened!" The
greater part of this man's career was spent
as pastor of St. Michael's in San Antonio,
where he was the acknowledged leader of
the Polish colony until his death in 1950.
Under his guidance the St. Michael's
Church was rebuilt in 1922 in an ambi­tious
expansion program, which culmi­nated
in the opening of St. Michael's
High School in 1935. Father Tom, as he
was affectionately called, celebrated his
diamond jubilee in the church only a few
months before his death.
KOSCIUSKO
1892
When the San Antonio and Gulf Railroad
began developing ranch lands into farms
in Wilson County, Polish farmers from
Cestohowa moved northward in the "Pol­ish
Corridor" extending to San Antonio,
WHEAT HARVEST AT WHITE DEER
and formed the communitv of Kosciusko.
Named for the Polish-born hero of the
American Revolution. Thaddeus Kosci­uszko.
this little town became a prosper­ous
farming and stockraising community.
A school was built in 1892. and six vears
later a parish church was erected to serve
65 families. In 1948 over 150 Polish fam­ilies
lived in the outlying reaches of this
village. Since that time. it has declined
remarkablv.
WILLIAM DOBROWOLSKI
1900
At the beginning of the 20th centurv Wil­liam
Dobrowolski was a leading San An­tonio
businessman with greatly diversi­fied
investments. In addition to farming,
Square House Museum
ranching, and real estate development. he
had cotton. oiL and banking interests. and
was a partner in an undertaking estab­lishment.
an ice house. and a soap factorv.
At the height of his influence a small town
on the San Antonio, Uvalde. and Gulf
Railway was named Dobrowolski in his
honor. This wide-ranging businessman
was born in 1862, the son of Polish im­migrants
who had settled at St. Hedwig
about 1855. Orphaned at eight, he was
adopted by his uncle. Ed Kotula. with
whom he was associated in the mercantile
business until 1893. Young Dobrowolski
invested his first $100 in real estate, and
continued these investments for the rest
of his life. He was active in both St. Al­bert's
Polish Society and St. Michael's
Catholic Church until his death in 1931 .
WHITE DEER
1909
In the summer of 1909 Henry Czerner,
John Krol, Mat Labus, and Ben Urban­czyk
left Panna Maria to seek more and
better farmland in the Texas Panhandle.
Czerner located land north of White Deer
in Carson County and prevailed upon the
White Deer Land Company to reserve the
acreage for the Poles of South Texas who
might want to move there. The Panna
Maria colonists acquired the land for
about $12.00 per acre, then made their
big move in boxcars with their food, fur­niture,
and livestock. The first years in
the new environment were almost remi­niscent
of early times in Panna Maria.
The people lived in small, hastily con­structed
houses, slept on feed sacks spread
upon the floor. and endured Panhandle
blizzards as best thev could. Farming was
difficult-virgin sod was broken with a
walking plow and team. Wheat, cotton.
and grain became their principal crops.
In 1910 the first Roman Catholic mass
was observed in John Urbanczyk's home,
and three years later Sacred Heart
Church was built. By 1916 almost a score
of Polish families lived near White Deer.
Thev built their own telephone system,
made their own soap and hominy, plant­ed
orchards. did their own butchering,
and achieved almost complete self-suffi­ciency
during those early years. Social
life revolved around such activities as
quilting parties and three-day weddings.
Today the Poles of White Deer form a
prosperous and substantial element of the
Texas High Plains population.
29
~
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30
Nesterowicz, Travel Notes
STEFAN NESTEROWICZ
1910
Stefan Nesterowicz was a Polish-born
travel writer who-with unconscious hu­mor-
recorded some interesting com­ments
about Texas and Texans in 1910.
Trained as a chemist in his native Poland,
his youthful wanderings drew his inter­ests
elsewhere, and in the early 1890's he
found himself a newspaper owner in
Warsaw. A business failure prompted him
to seek solace in the New World. He and
his family reached Texas by way of Bra­zit
New York, Pittsburgh, and Toledo.
where he worked for the weekly Ameryka
Echo. It was this experience that prompt­ed
the Texas journey. In his Travel Notes
he expressed a low opinion of Polish hotel-keepers
he encountered in Texas. "They
followed the principle, 'Get it from your
friend, your enemy won't give you the
chance.' So they took me for double the
price of everything, at the same time re­assuring
me-when the 'salted' bill was
presented-that they were treating me as
'a beloved compatriot.' And so, although
I had been plucked. I still had to make a
show of gratitude toward those plucking
me." Nesterowicz didn't like 1910 restau­rant
prices either: "You cannot justify the
high prices in Texas restaurants since
meat is no more expensive here than any­where
else, while vegetables, dairy prod­ucts,
and poultry are~much cheaper." Aft­er
the Texas experience,, N esterowicz
lived briefly in Baltimore, then in New
NOW-IN-Y- TEXASKI - 1. T. C. Collection ---- --· ~ ---..... -
4Jt'vi~V•i;J,1>ptrh1»oo;
. , 1 '(1 --:f"W''} ., .. "'rtalnk
West T~'!Jank~~.! rust CompanY
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., .....
York, where he was a magazine publish­er.
He returned to a free Poland in 1922
and died there in 1931.
THEODORE MAGOTT AND
NOWINY TEXASKIE
1914
Theodore Magott, a San Antonio grocer
and president of the Texas Polish Publish­ing
Company, was the guiding light of
perhaps the only Polish-language news­paper
in Texas. Nowiny Texaskie (Texas
News) was published weekly from 1913
until 1920. It served only the local Polish
colony and the surrounding area. Magott
himself was influential in the San Antonio
community, largely by virtue of his lead­ership
in the St. Michael's Church. Born
November 9. 1855. in VVieruszow. Poland.
he had immigrated to America in 1882.
He made his home at San Antonio. where
he attended school by night. and built a
successful merchandise store by day. This
store. at 1314 East Commerce Street in
San Antonio. has now been in operation
for more than 85 years. Magott died in
1936. and was buried by his friend. Fa­ther
Tom Moczygemba.
McCOOK
1925
The last colonization move from the orig­inal
settlement at Panna Maria saw Pol­ish
families moving to the Rio Grande
Valley around 1925. Led by the Kotzur
family. others from Karnes and Wilson
Counties bought scrub land. cleared and
fenced it, and began raising cotton and
corn near McCook in Hidalgo County. As
in the case of the earlier migration to
White Deer. the families moved their be­longings
in boxcars. The men followed
afoot, driving their livestock in a four-day
trek. The first structures raised were
barns in which the people lived until the
land could be cleared and planted. The
mesquite brush was so thick that one
lady recalled, "You could not see in any
direction but up to the sun." Once the
crops were in the ground. these industri­ous
people built their homes. Other Polish
families from Central Texas followed the
first handful to the valley. In 1950 they
built their own church, just as the original
Panna Maria colonists from Silesia had
done a century earlier in the Texas wil­derness.
THE REVEREND
EDWARD J. DWORACZYK
1954
The best known historian of Polish settle­ments
in Texas was the Reverend Edward
J. Dworaczyk of Yorktown. He was born
there on October 7, 1906, and received a
parochial education at schools in York­town,
Cestohowa, and Kosciusko. Or­dained
in 1930, he served for nineteen
years at historic Panna Maria before be­coming
pastor of St. Michael's parish in
San Antonio. Later he transferred to
nearby St. Margaret Mary parish, where
he remained until his death in 1965.
Careful archival research and interviews
with old-timers at Panna Maria led to the
1954 publication of The First Polish Col­onies
of America in Texas, marking the
Archdiocese of San Antonio
centennial of Polish settlellient in the
Lone Star State. He also published the
Church Records of Panna Maria, Texas,
a translation of early baptism·al and mar­riage
records from 1855 to 1863.
POLA NEGRI
1957
In the 1920's, when Hollvwood was the
newlv emerged glamour capitol of the
world, no star shone brighter than Pola
Negri. Her romance with Rudolph Valen­tino
ended at his death in 1926. Today
Miss Negri lives in quiet retirement at
San Antonio, a Texan bv choice. Born in
Lipno, Poland, her early successes on
stage and screen in Poland and Germany
catapulted her to a brilliant career as one
of the first foreign actresses in Hollvwood.
Among Paramount Studio's all-time
greats, she appeared in "Bella Donna;'
"The Spanish Dancer." "Forbidden Para­dise,"
"A Woman of the World," "Shad-ows
of Paris.'' and "Woman on Trial."
Her first sound film was "Woman Com­mands."
Invariablv she was cast as the
worldlv woman. With the advent of
talkies. Negri-the vamp of the silent
screen-was almost eclipsed. She lived in
Europe in the 1930's, returning to Ameri­ca
during World War II. Her public ap­pearances
became infrequent. In 195 7 she
moved to San Antonio. and in 1964 made
her last movie, "The Moonspinners,"
filmed in England by Walt Disney. In
1968 she was awarded the Hemisfair Film
Festival Award by the Fine Arts Center
of the Southwest for her contributions to
the still-evolving art of cinema. Miss
Negri's autobiography, Memoirs of a
Star, recalls Hollywood's golden age and
such legendary personalities as Douglas
Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Charlie
Chaplin; none more colorful, however,
than the star herself.
POLA NEGRI Courtesy of Pola Negri
31
32
WHITE HOUSE CEREMONIES, 1966
ONE THOUSAND YEARS
OF POLISH HISTORY
1966
In a White House ceremony on May 3,
1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson pre­sented
a mosaic of Our Lady of Czestocho­wa
to America's oldest Polish church, The
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed
Virgin Mary in Panna Maria, Texas. This
act was in commemoration of 1000 years
of Polish Christianity and national histo­ry.
The mosaic, by artist Jan E. Krantz of
New York, was given to Felix Mika, Sr.,
Felix V. Snoga, and the Reverend An­thony
Matula of Panna Maria, to be
placed in the old stone church as a symbol
of the religious devotion and dedication
to freedom of the Polish people. That
same year, in San Antonio, the shrine and
Panna Maria Historical Assn.
museum of the Polish American Crusad­ers
to Our Lady of Czestochowa was
founded to honor the patron saint of
Poland. This shrine has become a place
of international p~lgrimage.
POLISH AMERICAN
C 0 N G R E S S OF T E X A S
1971
In 1971 representatives of Polish Tex­ans-
educators, businessmen, farmers,
priests, doctors, and students-met in
Austin to organize the Polish American
Congress of Texas. Its primary aim was to
bring unity to Texas' scattered Polish
rural communities and large urban colo­nies
by maintaining ethnic consciousness,
traditions, and interest in a free Poland.
This was the first instance of a state-wide
effort by Polish individuals and organiza-tions
to bring cohesion to their efforts at
improving the position of Polish Texans
economically, socially, and politically.
The new organization also seeks coopera­tion
with national Polish American or­ganizations
in the North.
From tender shoots planted in forbid­ding
earth at Panna Maria in 1854, the
Polish influence in Texas has grown to ex­ceptional
proportions. By the turn of the
century there were 16,000 Poles in the
Lone Star State, and by 1940 this figure
had reached the 190,000 mark. They are
still coming. The 1960 census revealed
3J25 natives of Poland living here, all
comparative newcomers. Clannish by na­ture,
there was little inter-marriage with
other nationalities. Thus Polish customs
and language have been preserved to a
substantial degree, and their identity as
a special kind of Texan is easier to recog­nize.
Many years ago Jan Paderewski,
first premier of free Poland after World
War I, observed: "The Polish immigra­tion
in.the United States is but a vigorous
branch of an old-thank God, a powerful
-tree. They are a hard-working people,
contributing by their efficient and con­scientious
labor to the development of
natural resources and to the progress of
industry and growth of American pros­perity.
They are not rich, they are just
making their honest living. They are ful­filling
their duty imposed upon them by
circumstances with loyalty, determina­tion
and enthusiasm." No less can be said
of the Polish Texans; they came in search
of freedom, and through hard work have
found comfort and security.
~4:•
,t,,~ '
One of a series
prepared by the staff of
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO