Pinkowski Files

Ludwig Jerzykowicz, a Piarist monk from Miedzyrzeczna in Volhynia. The worn stone revealed that he was born in Poland, ordained in 1797, and died on April 12, 1861, at the age of 89.
Major Discovery Unveiled at Gravesite
An Error Made in 1834 Held Polonian Priest's Identity Secret
by Edward Pinkowski
For 35 years, the Delaware Council of Polish Societies has been paying tribute to Felix Gustave Gwinczewski every Decoration Day in a cemetery now separated by a fence from I-95, the main highway between Canada and Florida. It wasn't the type of cathartic observance that patriotic groups hold for many who lost loved ones to war.
Gwinczewski wasn't one of the one million people who have shed blood for this country in armed conflict: 529,332 soldiers in the Civil War; 1,600 in the Spanish-American War; 116,519 in World War I; 405,399 in World War II; 52,246 in the Korean War; 58,800 in Vietnam. He was an early Polish settler who died of a heart attack in Philadelphia on October 3, 1849, but was buried in the Wilmington-Brandywine Cemetery.
He was one of 234 Poles who came to the Unites States in two Austrian frigates after being permanently exiled for his activities at home in trying to free Poland from Russian rule. It took his ship four months and ten days to reach New York.
Alter landing, Gwinczewski placed his pen and knowledge of languages at the service of the exiles. With the help of a wily New York congressman, Churchill C. Cambreleng, Congress passed a bill which offered the 234 exiles 36 sections of land near Rock River, Illinois, to sow the seeds of a second Poland. President Andrew Jackson approved the legislation on June 30, 1834.
Unfortunately, the pilgrims from Poland had no money to travel to Illinois. buy farm equipment, and build shelters on the land grant. Squatters were also ready to fight them. The controversy simmered until 1842 when Congress rescinded the Polish claim. In the meantime, Gwinczewski settled in Wilmington, Delaware, and taught young men and women drawing, painting, and French. Quietly, he earned a reputation as an excellent citizen. When he died the editor of the Delaware Gazette wrote that he deserved a better fate.
Ceremony Sets Scene
The practice of placing flags and flowers on his grave goes back to the days of Vincent Kowalewski and Adam Rosiak, then president and secretary of the Delaware Council, respectfully. who selected the day for honoring the first Polish settler of Wilmington.
The colors on the grave in Section 8 were posted this year by the Captain Mlotkowski honor guard under the watchful eye of Wentzel Stepnowski nd the wreath was laid by his wife, Anne, who also served as mistress of ceremonies, and Helen Kilczewski, president of the Mlotkowski Society. Mrs. Kilczewski. who had lost her husband in the past year, was a picture of courage. It was the first ceremony without Charles Kilczewski in 35 years.
The eulogist was Richard F. Robinson. a director of the Polish Library Association, Wilmington, and a senior Du Pont computer analyst who devoted his remarks to every aspect of Gwinczewski's life. His word? still rang in the ears of the small gathering when Mrs. Stepnowski turned to a familiar face, Edward Pinkowski, an unexpected visitor from Philadelphia. and asked him to add a few words.
There was little left to say about Gwinczewski. Beginning in 1939, when he discovered the grave. Adam Rosiak dug up every hole that had information on Gwinczewski. and his findings have echoed in eulogies from year to year and from decade to decade. Pinkowski himself delivered the eulogy in 1971 when Angela Turochy raised money from raffles to put a new inscription on Gwinczewski's grave.
As the gathering waited, the author of Anthony Sadowski: Polish Pioneer and other books was on the spot. He did not want to rehash Robinson's splendid eulogy. He wanted to run from the cemetery like a hunted animal. Then ideas circled in his brain. He thought of the time that Gwinczewski suffered a heart attack and was taken on September 1, 1849. to Pennsylvania Hospital on Pine Street. Between 8th and 9th street, five blocks from the lodging house where General Kosciuszko stayed in 1797-98.
Old Country Connection
Gwinczewski and Kosciuszko -- what a connection! Half a century apart! Yet, as Gwinczewski testified in front of a Wilmington judge in 1840, he knew a man near his birthplace in Vohynia, Poland, who pretended that General Kosciuszko's fortune, based on papers filed while the Polish general lived at Third and Pine streets in Philadelphia, belonged to him. The man's name was Henry Klimkiewicz.
The story of the fight over Kosciuszko will and Gwinczewski's part in it was not appropriate for the occasion.
The success of Solidarity to wrench the Polish government out of Communist hands was already covered.
The sylvan setting was finally broken with an account of Pinkowski's discovery in April of the grave of the oldest Polish Catholic priest in America and Gwinczewski's connection with him. In fifty years of historical research Pinkowski had not known of the information that Father Ludwig Jerzykowicz's gravestone revealed to him.
Gwinczewski and Jerzykowicz were on the Austrian frigate, Hebe, on April 1, 1834, when the Committee of Polish Exiles was organized. Jerzykowicz was chosen to serve as treasurer of the group. Gwinczewski kept minutes of the meeting, but created a mix-up of names.
Before landing in New York with his penniless comrades. Gwinczewski sat down in the admiral's quarters, copied 234 named from Baron Bandiera's books, often with Italian first names and occupations. and handed the list to Baron Lederer. Austrian consul at New York, on July 14,1834. The name he copied for Father Jerzykowicz was "Luigi Chrestowski. Possidente."
Possidente is an Italian word which means many possessions, or in the case of "Chrestowski," a versatile man.
When Albert Gallatin received a copy of the list for the purpose of showing who was eligible to receive a land grant in Illinois, he revised it and placed Chrestowski and Jersykiewicz (sic) on the same line. So Jerzykowicz was lost to generations of researchers. Miecislaus Haiman, who as his secretary described him "lit the torch that was to light the way into the deep recesses of our unexplored Polish-American past," spelled it Jerzykiewicz.
Who Was Who
None of the books by Haiman, Wytrwal Renkiewicz and others listed his age or importance in American life. In The Catholic Encyclopedia, Felix Seroczynski's "Poles in the United States" thought that the organization he formed at 235 Division Street, New York, in 1842, known as "Association of Poles in America" (Stowarzyszenie Polaków w Ameryce), which had celebrated at the Stuyvesant Institute in New York an anniversary of the Polish Revolution was the highlight of his career.
Pinkowski, who has discovered the graves of Anthony Sadowski and Martin Rosienkiewicz and Kosciuszko's last residence in America, added the grave of Rev. Ludwig Jerzykowicz to his list of major discoveries in April when he visited Calvary Cemetery between Greenpoint and Woodside, Long Island. New York. The grave has six stone legs. each about ten inches thick, which holds a long limestone slab about a foot and a half off the ground. The inscriptions on it were faint and written in Latin and English. Some words and numbers were too worn to read with the naked eye. At one end is the outline of a priest in bas-relief, in the center a Celtic cross, and at the lower end the vital statistics of Rev. Ludovicus Jerzykowicz. The first name is in Latin.
The chosen spot, on a high piece of ground overlooking the East River, was visited twice in April, first by Edward and Connie Pinkowski and a Polish cemetery worker, and the following day by the venerable Henry Archacki. who has drawn almost a thousand Ripley-like historical panels in his lifetime, joined the Philadelphia couple to make rubbings of the hard-to-read inscriptions.
Although it did not mention that Jerzykowicz was a Piarist monk from Miedzyrzeczna in Volhynia. The worn stone revealed that he was born in Poland, ordained in 1797, and died on April 12, 1861, at the age of 89.
The Discovery
For the first time, in Wilmington, at the grave of Felix Gwinczewski. Pinkowski put the new discovery in perspective. As he counted so everyone could hear him, taking 89 from 1861, he said that Jerzykowicz, in terms of age,was the oldest Polish Catholic priest in the United States that he has found in the record books. Being born in 1772, four years before the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia. and eighteen years before the United Stales had its first Catholic bishop, Jerzykowicz deserves from Polonia and the Catholic Church tributes as rich as the gifts he brought to the United States at the age of 62.
The Italian word that Baron Bandiera used to describe him, possidente, meant more than"a maŸ for all seasons," "an old war horse," "a knight in shining armor," or any other label. It embraces a variety of gifts.
From: Polish American Journal, July 1990