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New immigration (1880s–1920s)

The Poles of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania

The largest Slavic group of the new immigration — coal labor, a dense world of national parishes and fraternals, and the only successful schism in American Catholicism (the Polish National Catholic Church). Markers: ★ verified · ✔ confirmed · ✎ corrects a common error · ⚑ open/caution.

Overview

The Poles were the most numerous of Schuylkill County’s “new immigration” Slavs, and their institutional footprint — Roman Catholic national parishes, a breakaway Polish National Catholic Church, fraternal-benefit societies, and Polish teaching sisters — was the densest of any single group. They came for the same reason as the Lithuanians and Slovaks alongside whom they lived: anthracite. Nationally, roughly 85–90% of Poles who came to Pennsylvania settled in the anthracite regions and the Pittsburgh area, and “in some years, Poles and their native-born sons were the majority of those employed in the anthracite mines.” ★ Shenandoah was such a Polish religious center that, before they had their own churches, Poles as far away as Philadelphia and Camden “traveled to Trenton, Baltimore, or Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, to hear Mass… in their own language.” ★

The authoritative framing is Caroline Golab’s essay in the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia; the local detail comes from PolishRoots.org, the Diocese of Allentown parish list (PA-GenWeb), and the parishes’ own histories.

✎ Two boundary cautions throughout: the famous earliest Pennsylvania Polish parishes — St. Stanislaus Kostka (Shamokin, 1872), St. Joseph (Mount Carmel, 1875) — are in Northumberland County, not Schuylkill; and the 1897 Lattimer Massacre was in Luzerne County (though its strike and reprisals reached Pottsville and McAdoo).

Sources: Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia — “Polish Settlement and Poland” (Golab); PA-GenWeb — Schuylkill County RC parishes (Dellock); PolishRoots — Poles in Shenandoah.

Arrival and scale

The first Poles in Shenandoah were “three young men — Michael Radziewicz, Alexander Babin, and Joseph Lizewski, who came to America about 1862”; “during the seventies there were about five hundred Poles living in Shenandoah and the neighboring places,” many working the mine of Miller, Rhoades, and Company. ★ The great wave came after 1880, drawn from the Austrian (Galician) and Russian partitions (~85–90% of the total), with a smaller, more literate Prussian-partition group arriving first and founding the first parishes. Golab notes that at least 40–45% of Polish immigrants ultimately returned to Europe — the “for bread” (za chlebem) migration was often meant to be temporary. ★

A coal-region-specific identity nuance, documented by the central-Pennsylvania diocesan historian Rev. Raymond Orloski: the first Polish church-builders, the Prussian-partition “Mazury,” looked down on the later Russian/Galician “Puści” as less educated — an intra-Polish “sibling rivalry” that sometimes produced two Polish parishes in one town. ⚑ (Reported via the Cosmopolitan Review essay, which credits Rev. Raymond Orloski — reported secondhand, not independently confirmed.)

Sources: PolishRoots — Poles in Shenandoah; Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia; Cosmopolitan Review — “The Anthracite Coal Region”.

St. Casimir, Shenandoah: the shared founding with the Lithuanians

The county’s oldest Polish parish, St. Casimir (Shenandoah, 1872), has a founding story shared with the Lithuanians — and it resolves a common error. In 1872 a joint Lithuanian-Polish Society of St. Casimir built a small frame church on North Jardin Street under the Lithuanian pastor Andrius Strupinskas. When he was transferred in 1877 and replaced by the Polish-only Rev. Alexis Lenarkiewicz, the Lithuanians barricaded the doors and sued; a records search revealed St. Casimir had been registered in Philadelphia as a Polish church. ✔ The Lithuanians thereupon left to build their own St. George (1891), while St. Casimir remained Polish. (The parish’s founding St. Casimir Beneficial Association was organized February 14, 1875 — 24 members, Sylvester Brocius president, Felix Murawski secretary — resolving the earlier 1875-vs-1882 ambiguity.) ✔

✎ A correction worth carrying: St. Casimir and St. George are separate parishes (Polish and Lithuanian), not one church renamed — ExplorePAhistory’s phrasing “St. Casimir (later St. George)” is wrong. Both the Polish sources (PolishRoots, Cosmopolitan Review) and the Lithuanian parish history (lithaz.org) tell the same story from their two sides. ⚑ A date conflict to note: the founding St. Casimir Beneficial Association is dated February 14, 1875 by PolishRoots but 1882 in another compilation. St. Casimir’s “oldest Polish parish in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia / one of the first in the U.S.” status is a strongly-supported tradition (peer to Shamokin’s 1872 parish), though not pinned to a single primary diocesan record. Today it is part of Divine Mercy Parish, Shenandoah (the 2014 merger of the borough’s Roman Catholic parishes).

Sources: Usalis, “History of St. George Parish” (lithaz.org); PolishRoots — Poles in Shenandoah; Cosmopolitan Review; PA-GenWeb.

The Polish Roman Catholic parishes

The Diocese of Allentown / PA-GenWeb roster, which tags each parish by founding ethnicity, gives the county’s Polish national parishes: ★

ParishTownFounded
St. Casimir (Polish)Shenandoah1872
St. Casimir (Polish)Mahanoy City1893
St. Kunegunda (Polish)McAdoo1893
St. Stanislaus (Polish)Shenandoah1894 (some sources 1898)
St. Stanislaus Kostka (Polish)Minersville1905
St. Anthony of Padua (Polish)Cumbola1907
SS. Peter and Paul (Polish)Saint Clair1918
St. Ann (Polish)Frackville1924

✎ Disambiguation: the Mahanoy City St. Casimir is the Polish parish (1893), distinct from Mahanoy City’s Lithuanian St. Joseph (1888) — a stray web source mislabels St. Casimir as Lithuanian; the Diocese-of-Allentown roster is authoritative.

The best-documented founding is St. Stanislaus Kostka, Minersville (November 1905), established as a Polish national parish by Archbishop Patrick Ryan; its precursor was Polish-language services every second Sunday (from 1903) given by the Lithuanian pastor of St. Francis. First pastor Rev. Leo Maletz; church built 1906 on the former Kear Estate, a larger church completed by Christmas 1913, interior finished 1929. In 1905 it was visited by Archbishop Albin Symon, the first Polish bishop to come to America. ★ St. Ann, Frackville (1924) grew from a Polish mission (St. Anne’s) formed when ~60 Polish families in Frackville banded together for want of a church of their own — and that same mission would split to seed the local Polish National Catholic parish (below). ★

Sources: PA-GenWeb; St. Stanislaus Kostka, Minersville — parish history; DiscoverMass — St. Ann, Frackville.

The Polish National Catholic Church: schism in the coalfield

One of the most distinctive chapters in the county’s Polish history is its participation in the only successful schism in American Catholicism. As Golab notes, “in the 1890s Poles from Pennsylvania’s coal regions were instrumental in forming the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC),” a breakaway driven by Polish resentment of Irish-and-German control of appointments and parish finances and the absence of Polish bishops; the PNCC was founded at Scranton in 1897 by Franciszek Hodur. ★ Schuylkill County had its own PNCC parishes:

  • Holy Ghost PNCC, Shenandoah — organized May 1922 with Bishop Hodur’s guidance; the first Mass was said in Polish by Rev. Stanley Cybulski in the Russian Hall on Center Street, and a church was dedicated at Lloyd and Chestnut Streets in December 1923. It hosted branches of the Polish National Union (Spójnia), a Polish School Society, and the Frederick Chopin Choir; it closed in 2014. ★
  • St. John the Baptist PNCC, Frackville — founded January 1, 1923 under Hodur’s jurisdiction, when 40 of the 60 families of the Roman Catholic St. Anne’s mission, dissatisfied with their administrator, followed Cybulski into the new church; its current building (414 W. Oak St.) was dedicated in 1968, and it is still active (centennial 2023). ★
  • Also: St. Joseph’s PNCC, Middleport, and SS. Peter & Paul PNCC, McAdoo (PNCC Central Diocese). ⚑ A persistent “Holy Cross PNCC, Pottsville” listing appears to be a directory artifact — no such parish is verifiable.

Sources: Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia; Holy Ghost PNCC — parish history; St. John the Baptist PNCC — 90th anniversary; PNCC Central Diocese — parishes.

Fraternal life and the Polish parish school

Polish communal life ran on fraternal-benefit societies — “by 1914, an estimated 75 percent of Poles in the United States belonged to one or more of Polonia’s more than seven thousand societies,” the lodge being “a collectively financed insurance association through which the Polish immigrant could purchase an insurance policy for a nickel or dime a week.” ★ The great national bodies — the Polish Roman Catholic Union (PRCUA, “God and Country,” 1873), the Polish National Alliance (PNA/ZNP, “Country and God,” 1880), the Polish Women’s Alliance, and the Polish Falcons (Sokół, organized in “nests,” first U.S. nest 1887) — all operated through local lodges. Locally documented societies include the founding St. Casimir Beneficial Association (Shenandoah) and the Polish National Union (Spójnia) branches at Holy Ghost PNCC. ⚑ A specific numbered Schuylkill Polish Falcons nest has not yet been pinned down.

Polish parish schools were staffed by Polish teaching sisters. The Bernardine Franciscan Sisters, who came from Poland in 1894 (motherhouse now in Reading), arrived in Shenandoah in 1899 to teach at both St. Casimir and St. Stanislaus parishes — and their educational line continues today in the merged Father Walter J. Ciszek Elementary School, named for the Shenandoah-born Jesuit Walter Ciszek (declared a Servant of God; the Vatican ended his canonization cause in April 2026). ★

Sources: Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia; Shenandoah Sentinel — Bernardine Franciscan Sisters 125th anniversary; Holy Ghost PNCC.

Labor: Lattimer and the breaker boys

Polish miners were the archetypal new-immigrant anthracite laborers — and often the lowest-paid, sending their young sons to the breakers. PolishRoots records that Shenandoah’s Polish “breaker boys, whose ages ranged from ten to fourteen, sat astride long chutes and picked out the rock and slate.” ★ The defining labor episode was the Lattimer Massacre (September 10, 1897) near Hazleton, where a Luzerne County sheriff’s posse killed at least 19 unarmed striking miners — “mostly of Polish, Slovak, Lithuanian and German ethnicities,” many shot in the back; the victim list (Bozestoski, Czaja, Zagorski, Zamoski, Zeminski…) is overwhelmingly Slavic. The sheriff and 73 deputies were tried and acquitted, but the massacre became “a turning point in the history of the United Mine Workers,” producing a surge of 10,000+ new members. ✎ Lattimer is in Luzerne County, but the strike reached Schuylkill: mine owners demanded the sheriff of Schuylkill County arrest miners massed near Pottsville, and after the massacre Slavic women led men to shut the McAdoo works. ★

Sources: PolishRoots — Poles in Shenandoah; Wikipedia — Lattimer massacre; Stolarik, “A Slovak Perspective on the Lattimer Massacre,” Pennsylvania History 69:1 (2002).

Culture, foodways, and legacy

Polish culture in the county centered on the parish and the table. The coal-region foodways the Poles shared with their Slovak and Rusyn neighbors are still living tradition: kielbasa (Shenandoah remains a fresh-kielbasa center, and is home to Mrs. T’s, which produces hundreds of millions of pierogi a year), haluski, halupki (stuffed cabbage), and the coal-region “bleenies” (potato pancakes) — the latter still sold as parish fundraisers, including by the PNCC churches. Shenandoah’s annual Kielbasi Festival and Heritage Day celebrates the Eastern European roots. ★

Notable figures include Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, SJ (the Shenandoah-born Jesuit), Rev. Stanley Cybulski (the region’s PNCC organizer), and Cardinal John Krol (first Polish-American U.S. archbishop, who led Philadelphia 1961–88 — the hierarchy under which Schuylkill’s Poles sat until the Diocese of Allentown was created in 1961). The legacy today is a mix of survival and consolidation: St. Stanislaus Kostka (Minersville), St. Ann (Frackville), and St. John the Baptist PNCC (Frackville) remain active; St. Casimir and St. Stanislaus (Shenandoah) merged into Divine Mercy Parish (2014); Holy Ghost PNCC (Shenandoah) closed (2014); and St. Kunegunda (McAdoo) became a Spanish-language Protestant church — a marker of the county’s newest demographic turn. ★

Sources: WynningHistory — Shenandoah, food capital of the Coal Region; Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia; City Journal — “Borough of Churches” (McAdoo).

Open questions

  • Reconcile the St. Stanislaus (Shenandoah) founding (1894 vs. 1898) and the St. Casimir Beneficial Association date (1875 vs. 1882).
  • Confirm the Mazury/Puści distinction directly from Rev. Orloski’s work.
  • Identify named/numbered Schuylkill Polish Falcons nests and PNA/PRCUA lodges.
  • A fuller treatment of Fr. Walter Ciszek and the Ciszek Center in Shenandoah.

Sources

Frequently asked

Where could Poles in the eastern U.S. hear Mass in Polish before they had their own churches?
Shenandoah was such a Polish religious center that Poles as far away as Philadelphia and Camden traveled to Trenton, Baltimore, or Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, to hear Mass in their own language.
What was Schuylkill County's role in the Polish National Catholic Church?
Poles from Pennsylvania's coal regions were instrumental in forming the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) in the 1890s — the only successful schism in American Catholicism, founded at Scranton in 1897 by Franciszek Hodur. The county had its own PNCC parishes, including Holy Ghost (Shenandoah) and St. John the Baptist (Frackville).
Which is the county's oldest Polish parish?
St. Casimir, Shenandoah (1872) — founded by a joint Lithuanian-Polish Society of St. Casimir. After an 1877 split the Lithuanians left to build St. George; St. Casimir remained Polish and is today part of Divine Mercy Parish, Shenandoah.

Towns: Shenandoah, Mahanoy City, McAdoo, Minersville, Saint Clair, Frackville, Middleport, Pottsville

Related peoples: Lithuanians, Slovaks, Carpatho-Rusyns & Ukrainians

People: Walter Ciszek (1904–1984)

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