I hadn't planned on taking last week off from blogging. But I delayed the post due to some family stuff that came up, and between that and work I just decided it made more sense to wait until this week to take you all on another quest.
We're returning to Berks County for a trip back in time to when this was the Province of Pennsylvania, and people were lured by William Penn's promise of religious freedom - like this guy was.
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| The marker is on US 422 in front of St. Gabriel's Church |
The details of exactly how and why Antoni left Poland are known only through the family's own oral history, which the Polish historian Edward Pinkowski committed to his writings. According to them, Antoni and his brother left home in early 1700 to take up arms in the Great Northern War. Sweden invaded Polish territory on the Gulf of Riga, and being loyal subjects of Poland, the brothers would have gone to defend their country. Unfortunately, his brother (whose name isn't mentioned in the recounting) was killed in a surprise attack, and Antoni was taken captive by the Swedes. He was tortured for information about the sites of Polish fortifications, enduring stretching on the rack for two days but still refusing to talk. He was then loaded onto a prison ship where, having fooled the guards into thinking he was dead, he was left unguarded. Under cover of darkness, he stripped off his clothes and tied a bag of coins around his neck, then jumped into the ocean to swim the nine miles back to shore. He knew he'd be caught and hanged if he tried to go home, so instead he managed to gain passage to England.
Here, the story of Antoni Sadowski starts to vary, as the different lines of his descendants have differing versions of what happened next. It's generally believed that he likely spent some time in Scotland after reaching the safety of the United Kingdom, but nobody really knows how long he was there or when he left. He came to what would eventually be the United States, but when he arrived, what route he took, and whether he was accompanied by anyone is a mystery. It's known for sure that he was here no later than 1709, as his name appears as the witness in a last will and testament, but that's all that can be confirmed.
It's approximated that he arrived in New Amsterdam (what we call New York today) sometime between 1702 and 1706. Sometime after 1704 but before 1706, he married the teenage Marya Bordt, or Mary Bird as it was anglicized; she was born on Long Island, the daughter of a Dutch settler, and the newlyweds resided for a time in what today is New Jersey and took up farming. But they soon heard about the neighboring land called Pennsylvania, where religious freedom was promised by William Penn, and Antoni - whose name became anglicized as Anthony - took his young family and crossed the Delaware River.
Now the details of his life start to become more confirmed. In 1712 he bought a parcel of land, 400 acres along the Schuylkill River, south of Reading in what today is Berks County. It was an excellent piece of property in many respects, having good timber, fresh water, and ideal land for farming. He built a homestead for his growing family and started to raise crops and livestock. He developed a reputation for being a hard worker and producing good wheat. By 1718, he and his neighbors felt that it was reasonable for their region to be declared a township, so they enlisted the help of George Boone (you might have heard of his grandson Daniel) to survey the land and establish the boundaries. It was decided that the township would be named Amity, because of the peaceful relationship the settlers enjoyed with their Native American neighbors.
Anthony and Mary had several children, although the exact number is uncertain. Three were still living at the time of their father's death, and it's believed that another three died during the years when St. Gabriel's burials were unrecorded; the couple's oldest daughter, Justina, made a will in 1731 which mentioned three sisters and two brothers, so there were at least six children.
The real reason for Anthony Sadowski to have a historical marker is because of his experiences with keeping the peace between settlers and Natives. For the entire duration of his life in Pennsylvania, Anthony was a friend to the Native Americans. Building on the good relationships William Penn had established with the local chiefs, Anthony was able to visit their villages without fear; he learned to speak the Delaware and Iroquois languages and was acquainted with their customs. For this reason, he was recruited by the provincial Governor of Pennsylvania, Patrick Gordon, to help him with a difficult task. In 1728 there was a Native attack in the Tulpehocken region, and the governor came personally to broker peace with the tribes. With Anthony's assistance, Gordon and a small group of others traveled to visit the chiefs in Shamokin, Conestoga, and Tulpehocken. They presented gifts, and Anthony's excellent translation skills meant that the overtures of peace were delivered well and, it is said, graciously received. Finally, in a meeting which Anthony suggested and which probably took place in his own home, the two sides negotiated a contract of friendship. Peace was restored.
It's difficult to say how things would have gone without Anthony Sadowski's help, but judging by the various accounts of the time period, probably not well.
Anthony continued trading with the natives, expanding his reach throughout Pennsylvania to the border of Ohio. In fact, there's a marker (not a PHMC marker, a different kind) to him out in Pittsburgh, remembering how far he traveled to establish trade and maintain peace with the Native Americans. He even went as far as Erie, where he set up another trading post. The family surname of Sadowski somehow became transliterated as Sandusky, and there are a number of locations near Erie - including the town of Sandusky, Ohio - named after him.
Anthony became a citizen of the Province of Pennsylvania in 1735. He died a year later, and is buried in the churchyard of St. Gabriel's. His widow Mary, who outlived him by more than twenty years, left Pennsylvania sometime after his death and went to Virginia, where she lived with their son Andrew and helped to raise his children; she's buried there.
Anthony had no tombstone for more than two hundred years, but some time after the historical marker was erected in 1966, funds were successfully raised by the Sadowski Memorial Committee to provide him with one at last. I very much wanted to enter the cemetery and look for it, but the day we were there was the same day I took pictures at the Fisher House. The March winds were fierce and cold, and we were ultimately chased out of the area by a heavy snow squall; even my picture of the actual church building was ruined because of the wind. However, the FindAGrave link in my sources section has pictures of Anthony's stone, and the St. Gabriel's website has a drawing in its history section of the log cabin church where he worshiped. He's remembered by generations of his descendants - and many others - as "the greatest Polish frontiersman of colonial times".
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
Thank you for such an interesting article. Never knew nor hear anything about him. Well donem
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteI've read a bit on Antoni Sadowski and really enjoyed your article. My thanks to you for researching and publishing this. He was my 5th great grandfather.
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