Kalczynski, Adam
(Dec. 24, 1833 - Feb. 11, 1911)
Polish LegionIf it weren't for his pension papers in the National Archives, not many would know that his name was really Adam Kalczynski - not Kalauzynth, Kalorzynski, Kalaniski, Kalezynski, Kiezenske, Kilzinski, and other variants. Because of the misspellings, it is hard to find him in the federal census records of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he lived the last four decades of his life. It was spelled Kilzinski in 1910 when he kept a fine boarding house in Milwaukee when one of his boarders owned a shoe store.
To pick out highlights to build a family tree, the pension papers show that he was born in Loebau, Germany, the son of John Kalczynski, whom he claimed lived at Warsaw, Poland, in 1864, and listed himself as a locksmith of New York, New York. On May 27, 1861, he joined the first vestige of the Polish Legion, otherwise known as Company C, 31st New York Infantry, and was captured at Fredericksburg, Virginia, May 4, 1863. He was confined to the Confederate prisoner of war camp in Richmond, Virginia, and paroled at City Point, Virginia, May 15, 1863. He remained on the records of the Polish company until June 4, 1863. On July 29, 1863, when he enlisted in the Union Army for the second time, he served in Company I, 15th New York Heavy Artillery, and was wounded by two rifle balls in the left shoulder during a battle near Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia. In the records of the company, when he was taken from camp on May 19, 1865, it said, "killed in action." He was discharged August 15, 1865, due to his disability.
Two years later, on Nov. 5, 1867, for the third time, he received a bounty of $50 and donned the uniform of the 42nd U.S. Infantry, and performed his duty as a private in Company H until March 2, 1869. The following year he settled down in Milwaukee, where in 1866 the second oldest Polish settlement in Wisconsin had organized St. Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr, parish, and found not only work but also a Polish girl, Her name was Katherine Fis. Father Hyacinth Gulski, who became pastor of the magnificent, two-steeple St. Stanislaus in 1876, married them on August 28, 1878. They had the following children - Angeline, June 23, 1879; John, June 6, 1881; Mary, Nov. 19, 1882; Anne, Dec. 28, 1884; Julia, Jan. 9, 1889; Wanda, April 27, 1890; and Helen, Sept. 30, 1896. Whether they were raised in the boarding house on Mitchell Street, on which the new St. Stanislaus church was built in 1872-73, remains to be verified.
The Civil War veteran apparently died at 422 Mitchell Street and was buried in the Polish Union Cemetery. His son, who died before him, was the father of a child who died in infancy. Hence no one was left in the male line to carry on the family name.
From: Edward Pinkowski (2009)