THE POLES IN THE UNITED STATES 



ATTENTION has been directed of late to the Poles, 

 the predominating Slavic race in the United States, 

 by the recent celebration of the memory of two Polish 

 heroes of the American Revolution, Kosciusko and Pulaski, 

 and by the latest commemoration of the battle of Griinwald, 

 near Tannenberg, in East Prussia, which, five hundred years 

 ago, shaped the destiny of the Polish people and made them 

 a great nation. The first was a celebration of their union 

 in heart and soul with America in the memories of our po- 

 litical birth and development at a time when the star of 

 Poland was setting; the other a glorious retrospect of five 

 centuries that meant the unity and development of their own 

 people. The glory of their ancient land and people has been 

 dimmed by conquest and the parcelling of their territory 

 among alien rulers, but their life, language and faith have 

 withstood the shock, and have made the Poles still a factor in 

 the world's culture and civilization. Their later history may 

 be called that of Slavic Ireland, while many of the dates and 

 disasters of both are curiously coincident. 



The Poles are mingled with our earliest history. How 

 they came to the United States in those early days is a 

 mystery. It is even said that a Pole discovered America 

 before Columbus. John of Kolno (a town in Russian Po- 

 land) commanded a Danish vessel which is said to have 

 reached the coast of Labrador in 1476. Albert Zoborowsky 

 (Zabriskie) settled near Hackensack in New Jersey in 1662, 

 and his name is found as interpreter on an Indian contract for 

 the sale of land dated 1679. All the New Jersey and New 

 York Zabriskies are said to be descended from his family. In 

 1659 the Dutch on Manhattan Island hired a Polish school- 

 master. In 1770 Jacob Sodowsky settled in New York and 

 his sons were frontiersmen in the early settlement of Ken- 

 tucky. One tradition says that the city of Sandusky was 



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