Felix Wierzbicki

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

California as It Is and as It May Be, or a Guide to the Gold Region, 1849

Life

When the Mexican–American War commenced in 1846, he joined Company H of the 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers. The New York Volunteers was a unit organized by Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson to occupy and settle California.^[3] Then he participated in California Gold Rush.

In 1849, Wierzbicki published in San Francisco the first English-language book printed in California,^[4] California as It Is and as It May Be, or A Guide to the Gold Region.^[5][6][7] 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.^[8]

Wierzbicki died on 26 December 1860 in San Francisco and was buried there in the Laurel Hill Cemetery.^[9] His remains were later reinterred at the San Francisco National Cemetery.^[1][4]

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.^[10] Signed A Philokalist ("Lover of Beauty"), credited to Wierzbicki.^[11][12]
• California as It Is and as It May Be, or A Guide to the Gold Region, 1849.