Felix Wierzbicki (Polish: Feliks Paweł Wierzbicki [Felix Paul Wierzbicki]; 1 January 1815, in Czerniawka, Volhynia, Poland, now Chernyavka, Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine – 26 December 1860, in San Francisco) was a Polish-American veteran of the November 1830 Uprising, physician, soldier,[1] traveler, and writer.[2]
Life
editWhen the Mexican–American War commenced in 1846, he joined Company H of the 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers. The New York Volunteers was a unit organized by Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson to occupy and settle California.[3] Then he participated in California Gold Rush.
In 1849, Wierzbicki published in San Francisco the first English-language book printed in California,[4] California as It Is and as It May Be, or A Guide to the Gold Region.[5][6][7] The book is an "unvarnished" description of the culture, peoples, and climate of the area at that time. Wierzbicki described prospective settlers, and included a survey of agriculture and hints on gold mining.[8]
Wierzbicki died on 26 December 1860 in San Francisco and was buried there in the Laurel Hill Cemetery.[9] His remains were later reinterred at the San Francisco National Cemetery.[1][4]
Books
edit- The Ideal Man: A Conversation between Two Friends, upon the Beautiful, the Good, and the True, as Manifested in Actual Life, Boston, E.P. Peabody, 1842.[10] Signed A Philokalist ("Lover of Beauty"), credited to Wierzbicki.[11][12]
- California as It Is and as It May Be, or A Guide to the Gold Region, 1849.
Notes
edit- ^ a b Teofil Lachowicz, Polish Freedom Fighters on American Soil: Polish Veterans in America from the Revolutionary War to 1939, ISBN 1936198312, 2011 p. 21
- ^ "Wierzbicki Feliks Paweł", Encyklopedia PWN
- ^ CLARK, FRANCIS D. (1882). The first regiment of New York volunteers, commanded by Col. Jonathan D. Stevenson, in the Mexican war. New York.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b Gillian Olechno-Huszcza (Spring 1985). "Feliks Pawel Wierzbicki in California" (PDF). Vol. 42, No. 1. Polish American Studies. pp. 59–69. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved November 18, 2012.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Felix Wierzbicki, "California Guidebook", 1849
- ^ Felix Paul Wierzbicki, California as It Is and as It May Be, or A Guide to the Gold Region, San Francisco, Grabhorn Press, 1933.
- ^ Felix Wierzbicki, California Guidebook, 1849 online
- ^ California As I Saw It, 1849-1900. Vol. 15. [database on-line] Washington: Library of Congress, 1999
- ^ Miecislaus Haiman, "Dr. Felix Paul Wierzbicki", in Polish Pioneers of California, Chicago, Polish R[oman] C[atholic] Union of America, 1940, p. 43.
- ^ Sparks, Jared; Everett, Edward; Lodge, Henry Cabot; Lowell, James Russell (1842). "The North American Review".
- ^ Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature, 1928, vol. 3, p. 128.
- ^ A contemporary review of the book, The Boston Quarterly Review, April 1842.
References
edit- Miecislaus Haiman [Mieczysław Haiman], "Dr. Felix Paul Wierzbicki", in Polish Pioneers of California, Chicago, Polish R[oman] C[atholic] Union of America, 1940, pp. 39–43.
- George D. Lyman, "Wierzbicki: The Book and the Doctor" (introduction to reprint of California as It Is and as It May Be, San Francisco, Grabhorn Press, 1933).
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