Felix Wierzbicki

Title page of California as It Is and as It May Be, or a Guide to the Gold Region

Felix Wierzbicki (Polish: Feliks Paweł Wierzbicki; 1 January 1815, Czerniawka, Volhynia, Poland, now Chernyavka, Ukraine — 26 December 1860, San Francisco) was a Polish-American veteran of the November 1830 Uprising, physician, soldier,^[1] traveler, and writer.^[2]

In 1849, Wierzbicki published in San Francisco the first English-language book printed in California,^[3] California as It Is and as It May Be, or A Guide to the Gold Region.^[4][5][6] 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.^[7]

Wierzbicki died on 26 December 1860 in San Francisco and was buried there in the Laurel Hill Cemetery.^[8] His remains were later reinterred at the San Francisco National Cemetery.^[1][3]

Books

• 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.^[9] Signed A Philokalist ("Lover of Beauty"), credited to Wierzbicki.^[10][11]
• California as It Is and as It May Be, or A Guide to the Gold Region, 1849.

Notes

1. Teofil Lachowicz, Polish Freedom Fighters on American Soil: Polish Veterans in America from the Revolutionary War to 1939, ISBN 1936198312, 2011 p. 21
2. "Wierzbicki Feliks Paweł", Encyklopedia PWN
3. 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.
4. Felix Wierzbicki, "California Guidebook", 1849
5. Felix Paul Wierzbicki, California as It Is and as It May Be, or A Guide to the Gold Region, San Francisco, Grabhorn Press, 1933.
6. Felix Wierzbicki, California Guidebook, 1849 online
7. California As I Saw It, 1849-1900. Vol. 15. [database on-line] Washington: Library of Congress, 1999
8. Miecislaus Haiman, "Dr. Felix Paul Wierzbicki", in Polish Pioneers of California, Chicago, Polish R[oman] C[atholic] Union of America, 1940, p. 43.
10. Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature, 1928, vol. 3, p. 128.
11. A contemporary review of the book, The Boston Quarterly Review, April 1842.

References

• 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).