The
Polish Immigration in New Jersey
Although the census for 1890 showed only 3,615 Poles in New
Jersey. Bishop Wigger in his report for the same year listed 5,000
Poles in the Newark Diocese alone. By 1910, the census listed
69,244 Poles in New Jersey, most of them coming from the small
villages in Galicia (a name no longer used today), the Southern
part of Poland. These immigrants were attracted to the mills in
Passaic and Paterson, and particularly in Passaic, where German
companies had established woolen and worsted mills. Poles and
other nationalities were brought directly by the mill owners from
Ellis Island to Passaic. Other Polish immigrants were experienced
miners and they were attracted to the iron mines in Hibernia and
the zinc mines in Franklin and Ogdensburg.For the most part,
the Poles were overwhelmingly Catholic and devout in the practice
of their religion. The earliest Polish Catholics in Passaic were
forced to travel to St. Stanislaus Church, established in 1872 on
East Seventh Street in Manhattan, N.Y, and later to St. Anthony's
Church, established in 1884 in Jersey City
Rev.
Canon Stanislaus J. Kruczek
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