Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/246

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

POLEMICAL


204


POLES


vols. I and IV (Freiburg, 1901-041, and in Pastoh, GesMchte der Pdpste (Freiburg, 190S-10), IV, V. See also "The Tablet", 28 Aug., 1909, p. 340. The edition of the letters published by QuiRlNi is far from complete, and many still remain in MS.

Herbert Thurston.

Polemical Theology. See Theologt.

Polemonium, titular see in Pontus Polemoniacus, suffragan of Xeocs.sarea. At the mouth of the Side- nus, on the coast of Pontus in the region called Sidene, was a town called Side, which, it is believed, took the name of Polemonium in honour of Polemion, made King of Pontus by Marcus Antonius about 36 b. c. Doubtless its harbour gave it a certain importance, since it gave its name to the Pontus Polemoniacus. It is now the %-illage of Pouleman in the vilayet of Treb- izond, on the right bank of the Pouleman Tchai; the ruins of the ancient town, octagonal church, and ram- parts, are on the left bank. Six of its bishops are known: Aretius, present at the Council of Xeocoesarea in 320 (he was perhaps Bishop of Lagania); John, at Chalcedon (4.51), signer of the letter from the bishops of the province to Emperor Leo (458) ; Anas- tasius, at the Council of Constantinople (680); Domi- tius, at the Council of Constantinople (692) ; Constan- tine, at Xicaa (787) ; John, at Constantinople (869 and 879). The "Notitiaeepiscopatuum" mentions the see until the thirteenth century.

Smith, Diet, of Greek and Roman Oeog., s. v., gives bibliography of ancient authors: R.tMs.w, Asia Minor, 325: Le Quien", Oriens Christ, I, 513. See also Mueller's notes to Ptolemy, ed. Didot, I, 867.

S. PetridI;s.

Poleni, GiovANXi, marquess, physicist, and anti- quarian; b. at Venice, 23 Aug., 1683; d. at Padua, 14 Nov., 1761; son of Marquess Jacopo Poleni. He studied the classics, philosophy, theology, mathemat- ics, and physics. He was appointed, at the age of twenty-five, professorof astronomy at Padua. In 171,5 he was assigned to the chair of phj'sics, and in 1719 he succeeded Nicholas Bemoulh as professor of mathe- matics. As an expert in hydraulic engineering he was charged by the \'enetian Senate with the care of the waters of lower Lombardy and with the constructions necessary to prevent floods. He was also repeatedly called in to decide cases between sovereigns whose states were bordered by water-ways.

His knowledge of architecture caused Benedict XIV to call him to Rome in 1748 to examine the cupola of St. Peter's, which was rapidly disintegrating. He promptlj' indicated the repairs necessary. He also WTOte a number of antiquarian dissertations. In 1739 the Academy of Sciences of Paris made him a member, and later the societies of London, Berlin, and St. Petersburg did the same. The city of Padua elected him as magistrate, and after his death erected his statue bj' Canova. Venice also honoured him by strik- ing a medal.

The following are his principal works: "Miscel- lanea" (dissertations on physics), Venice. 1709; "De vorticibus ccclestibus", Padua, 1712; "De motu ac- quae mixto", Padua, 1717; "De castellis per quae de- rivantur fluviorum latera convergentia", Padua, 1720; "Exercitationes Vitru\-ianaB", Venice, 1739; "II tiempo di Diana di Efeso", Venice, 1742.

Akon, Memorie per la vita del Signer G. P. (Padua, 1762); FoncHT, Btoge, iUm. de Vac. des Sc. hist. (Paris, 1763).

William Fox.

Poles in the United States. — Causes of Immigra- tion. — There i.s condfcHimiat ion for the tradition that a Pole, John of Kulno (:i town of .Masovia), in the services of King Cliristian of Denmark, commanded a fleet which reached the coast of Labrador in 1476 ("Ameri- can Pioneer", I, Cincinnati, 1844, 399). The well- known Zabriskie family of Now York is descended from Albert Zhorowski, who not later than 1662 settled on the Hackensack River, New Jersey. His signature \a found ulii.xed as interpreter to an Indian contract


of purchase in 1679 (New York General Records, XXIII, 26, 33, 139-47). (Jne descendant, Abraham O. Zabriskie, was the eminent Chancellor of New Jersey. Other descendants intermarried with the most prominent colonial families, and were soon merged in the general population. In 1659 the Dutch on Slanhattan Island hired a Polish school-master (Conway, "Cath. Educ. in U. S."). In 1770 Jacob Sodowski settled in New York, and his sons were among the first white men to penetrate as far as Kentucky. It is said that Sandusky, Ohio, was named after him (American Pioneer, I, 119; II, 325). Roosevelt, "Winning of the West", Vol. I, p. 164. Previous to this there were Polish settlers in Mrginia (Kruszka, op. cit. infra, I, 54) and the southern states (Johns Hopkins Studies, XIII, p. 40). But among the European champions of American In- dependence few ii any were more prominent than the noble Polish patriots, Thaddeus Kosciusko and Casimir Coimt Pulaski, the brilliant cavalry ofEcer. Several of the aides of Pulaski's famous Legion were Polish noblemen.

The Polish Revolution of 1S30 brought to the United States a considerable and abiding contingent of Poles, mostly soldiers and members of the lower nobility. Part of Napoleon's Polish Legion had been dispatched to San Domingo, whence such as did not perish miserably or return to Europe came to the United States. A considerable number of Poles were in the American armies, fighting the Seminole Indians in the south. Among Americana of that time enthusiasm in Poland's cause ran high, and the tourist who visits the Polish National Museum in the ancient Hapsburg castle in Rappers- schwyl, Switzerland, can see many tokens of sjTn- pathy sent to the struggling Poles by their American admirers. In 1835 there existed a "Polish National Committee in the United States", whose members were prominent Americans, and whose president, as we learn from a pamphlet printed in Philadelphia, 30 Sept., 1835, was M. Carey. The number of Poles in the United States must have run up to thou- sands, if we may judge from the frequent allusions to the various groups in the American Press of the time. American s^-mpathy took concrete form when Con- gress made the Poles a grant of thirty-six sections of land, and surveyed two townships for them near Rock River, Illinois.

A number of veterans of the Revolution of 1830 or- ganized the Stowarzyszenie Polak6w w Ameryce (Association of Poles in America), in New York. An appeal dated New York, 20 March, 1842, calls upon all Poles in America to affiliate with an or- ganization recently effected at the home of the Rev. Louis Jezykowicz, 235 Division Street, New York. "To die for Poland" was the watchword of the organization, which, according to a brochure printed in Paris, elaboratelv commemorated the Revolution of 1830, at the StuWesant Institute, New York. Poles from Boston, Baltimore, L^tica, Phila- delphia, and Niagara were present at the celebration, and many distinguished Americans and foreigners, as well as various Scandinavian, French, and Ger- man societies participated. In 1852 probably the second Polish organization in the United States was founded, Towarzystwo Demokratyczne Wygnalic6w Polskich w Ameryce (Democratic Society of Poles in America), an "ardent anti-slavery organization. In 1854 it numbered over two hundred members, but there are no records of its activities later than 1858. The Poles coming throughout this period of political immigration were persons of culture, and were freely admitted into American society, which looked upon them as martyrs for liberty. Their Americanization was most frequently concomitant with the loss of their Faith. With a few noteworthy exceptions, they exercised no influence upon the