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Polish
Society of California Officers |
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Lodge
7’s Delegates to the Board of Directors of The Polish Club |
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CELEBRATING OUR 150th ANNIVERSARY IN
2013! Save the
date! Anniversary Banquet, November
9th, San Francisco Celebrating 150
Years of the Polish Society of California & Organized
Polonia in the San Francisco Bay Area Slideshow: History
of San Francisco’s “Polish Society of California” & A Brief History of the Polish Community in Northern California: Stay tuned! 22 May 1863: GRAND MASS MEETING IN SAN FRANCISCO
THE POLISH SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA, one of the oldest civic organizations in the State of California, was created in 1863 by idealistic and patriotic members of the Central Polish Society of the Pacific Coast. The Society was headquartered at the time at the Russ House Hotel in San Francisco. The first president (and co-founder of the Society with Captain Rudolf Korwin Piotrowski) was Captain Kazimierz Bielawski under whose leadership the Society prospered. The Polish Society of California was the first of its kind on the Pacific Coast and one of the oldest in the United States. The Polish Society was established in San Francisco in the Spring of 1863 by Polish California pioneers who united that year to support the January Uprising in Poland. In solidarity with Poland’s struggle to regain her freedom, the Poles in San Francisco initiated an unprecedented, well-organized public campaign that raised funds for the Uprising and attracted the attention and support of the general public. On May 22, 1863, in the City of San Francisco, a “Grand Mass Meeting in Favor of Polish Freedom and Nationality” was convened, chaired by the newly-elected Mayor of the City, the Honorable Henry P. Coon. The outspoken and enthusiastic support at that time of many prominent members of the California State Senate, the State Assembly and Civic Leaders in San Francisco for Poland’s 1863 struggle for national independence lent prestige to the Polish Society and furthered its goals. Polish-Americans in Northern California have made significant contributions to the State: In 1849 Aleksander Zakrzewski, “engineer in the Topographical Corps of the Polish Army,” drew The Official Map of San Francisco that hung for a time in the Mayor’s Office; he is also known for publishing a lithograph entitled “View of the Procession in Celebration of the Admission of California, Oct. 29th, 1850” (Lithograph by Zakreski [sic] & Hartman); Dr. Feliks Paweł Wierzbicki (pioneer physician and member of the Medical Society of the State of California, published the first book in English in California [California as It is and as It May Be. A Guide to the Gold Region, 1849]; he also authored the first book on California mines; he is immortalized in a mural [by Polish-Jewish artist Bernard Zakheim] in Toland Hall at UCSF Medical Center); Captain Kazimierz Bielawski, first President (and co-founder) of the Polish Society of California, surveyed nearly all of the Spanish land grants in California, and assisted in the purchase of the State of Alaska from Russia; he drew and published a railroad map of California and Nevada; Martin Prag was a highly esteemed merchant; Aleksander Hołynski wrote California’s Gold Rush Days in 1851 (he died in France in 1893); world-renowned stage actress Helena Modrzejewska (Modjeska) began her career in San Francisco with the help of local ex-pats (Kazimierz Bielawski, Dr. Władysław Pawlicki, Julian Horain, Gen. Krzyżanowski [1870s], Aleksander Bednawski, Captain Franciszek T. Lessen, and Captain Rudolf Korwin Piotrowski); Andrzej (André) Poniatowski, brother-in-law of banker William H. Crocker, brought to the Bay Area the first hydroelectric power lines from dams in the Sierra Nevada (now owned by PG&E); Captain Rudolf Korwin Piotrowski (prototype of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s literary character Zagłoba) was an immigration officer and an intimate of California civic leaders; he founded the mining town of Sebastopol on the Cosumnes River; his friend, Franciszek Michał Wojciechowski [aka Francis Mitchell or Michel, etc. who settled near the Cosumnes River] was Sienkiewicz’s inspiration for the literary character Longinus Podbipięta. Henryk Sienkiewicz lived, for two years, in California--for a time with Helena Modrzejewska in Anaheim and Franciszek Wojciechowski in Sebastopol. Dr. Jan Strencel, physician and friend of Dr. Pawlicki, was one of the pioneer horticulturalists of the State, and father-in-law to John Muir. Dr. Marcel M. Pietrzycki, graduate of Toland Medical College in San Francisco, was one of the best-known physicians in the State of Washington. Gabriel Sowulewski was a Yosemite trail-builder, and so on. Read more.
Click here for a partial
list of Society Members (1864) Charles Meyer, Dr. L. J. Czapkay, Martin Prag, J.Władysław Andrzejowski, Charles H. Berlin, Franciszek Michał
Wojciechowski, Leon
Czajkowski, Joseph
Pałecki, Konstanty
Łuniewski, Morris Greenberg, Elie Lazard, Dr. Elkan Cohn Some early members of the
Polish Society of California included: * Dr. Marcel Pietrzycki, physician -- an ardent
worker for the cause of Polish Independence * Dr. Władysław
(Ladislaus)Pawlicki, physician; personal friend of San
Francisco’s Archbishop Riordon
Members Listed on the recreated PNA Lodge 7 Charter, 1880 (originally
Council 4): Jan Banachowski, Kazimierz Bielawski, Władysław Borejko, Antoni Czarnecki, Konstanty Viktor Engelman, Max Engelman, Teodor Ferenc, Antoni Fijałkowski, Gustaw Hejlman, Antoni Hirschfelder, Paweł Jachowski, Władysław
Januszkiewicz, Józef Jerczyński,
Ignacy Jocz, Ignacy Kolasa, Andrzej Kopankiewicz, Count Leon Bronisław von Łąski, Aleksander Maliszewski, Kazimierz Nowak, Jan Nowak, Ignacy Olbinski, Ludwig Opio, Władysław Pawlicki Former officers of the Polish Society included Captain Kazimierz Bielawski, Captain Rudolf Korwin
Piotrowski, Dr. L. J. Czapkay,
Dr. Władysław (Ladislaus) Pawlicki,
Aleksander Bednawski,
Charles Meyer, Morris Schloss, Captain Franciszek (Francis) Teofil Lessen,
Gustav Hejlman (Heilman), Antoni Hirschfelder, Antoni Czarnecki, Michał Bracławski, Ignacy Kolasa, and others (see the 100th Anniversary
Booklet). [Read about Jewish life in
San Francisco in the 1860s; “American Jerusalem”.] Prince Andrzej Poniatowski, "a very enthusiastic worker in the Polish Colony,
…paid for as many as 10 members of the [Polish] Society…" One of the society's great
supporters in the 1870s was Count Bodzenta-Chłapowski,
husband of the great Shakespearean actress, Helena Modrzejewska. The Society's library was enriched by a collection of books donated in
1864 by the Polish poet Kornel Ujejski. [Text from Silent Heroes by Wanda Tomczykowska, based on the work of
Miecislaus (Mieczysław) Haiman & others.] Since 1880, the Polish
Society of California has been known as Branch (or Lodge) 7 of the Polish National Alliance.
The Polish National Alliance of the United States of North America,
popularly known as PNA or the Alliance, is the largest of all
ethnically-based fraternal insurance benefit societies in this country. The Polish Club Inc.
and the PNA, Lodge 7, are both long-time sponsors of Łowiczanie Polish Folk Ensemble. Library | Polish Club 80th Anniversary | 100th
Anniversary, Polish Society of California Entries from Early San Francisco City Directories | Historic News Articles | 1876 Museum Gift |
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