Panna Maria, the Oldest Polish Settlement in America, Began With a Mass Under an Oak
On Christmas Eve 1854, Silesian families gave thanks under a live oak in Karnes County. Their church still stands beside it, and it is open every day.
Panna Maria is a small place: a church, an old oak tree, a historic district on FM 81 and a story that starts with a Mass said outdoors on Christmas Eve.
The little Karnes County community calls itself the oldest permanent Polish settlement in the United States. The Handbook of Texas says it also claims the nation's oldest Polish church and school. The Handbook places it on a plateau near where the San Antonio River meets Cibolo Creek, four miles north of Karnes City and 55 miles southeast of San Antonio.
A priest who wrote home
The story begins with a young Franciscan, Father Leopold Moczygemba, who came to Texas in 1852 to serve German parishes in New Braunfels and Castroville. According to the Handbook, he soon began writing to fellow Poles in Upper Silesia. He urged them to leave hard times and Prussian rule and join him in Texas.
The first group left in September 1854. Four of the priest's brothers were among them. They went by train to Bremen, by ship to Galveston, and then on foot and by rented oxcart to San Antonio. The Handbook says estimates of how many came range from 150 to 800. Some died at sea, more died on the way inland, and some stopped in other towns.
The parish history says the settlers celebrated their first Mass under an oak tree on Dec. 24, 1854. They named the place Panna Maria, which means "Virgin Mary." The Handbook describes the land then as tall grass, live oaks, mesquite and rattlesnakes. Moczygemba bought 238 acres with church money, set aside 25 acres for a church and divided the rest among families who could not afford farms.
The sign outside the church in Panna Maria, 2016. Image cropped. Photo: Darrylpearson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
A church that kept rising
The parish says the first church went up in 1855 next to the oak and was dedicated to the Virgin Mother. The Handbook dates its consecration to Sept. 29, 1856. That first church was destroyed by lightning in 1875. The present church was finished in 1877 and enlarged in 1937, the parish says.
The Panna Maria Historical Society says a 2000 renovation uncovered a fully painted ceiling in the sanctuary, which has since been restored. The church's large stained glass windows were restored in 2013.
The early years were hard. The Handbook lists snakes, malaria, grasshoppers, drought, floods and raiders. Discouraged settlers turned against Moczygemba, and he left Texas. He spent most of his remaining years in the northern United States and was buried in Detroit. In 1974, the people of Panna Maria brought him home. They reburied him under the same oak where he had said that first Christmas Mass and put up a monument calling him the "Patriarch of American Polonia."
The faith held. After the Civil War, the Handbook says, Polish priests and a community of Polish teaching sisters helped the town keep its church traditions and its language. In 1966, about 10,000 people gathered there for a Mass marking 1,000 years of Polish Christianity. President Lyndon B. Johnson's gift that year was a 12,000-piece mosaic of the Virgin of Czestochowa by artist Jan E. Krantz, which was put on permanent display in the church.
If you go
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is at 13879 N. FM 81. Its website says the church is open daily and visitors are welcome. The parish schedule lists Sunday Masses at 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 8:30 a.m. Sunday. Weekday Masses are at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. Confession is 30 minutes before Mass. The parish is in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, and the parish office number is (830) 780-2748.
The historical society runs a visitors center in the old Pilarczyk's Store building on FM 81. It lists Thursday hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. from November through March. It is also open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sunday afternoons, except on holiday weekends. Because volunteers are limited, the society asks groups to schedule tours ahead at (830) 780-4471. Its events page lists the homecoming turkey dinner on the second Sunday of every October. The turkey is cooked overnight over wood fires.
The Handbook put Panna Maria's population at about 96 as of 2000. Still, the historical society says visitors come from around the world. They come because of what those first families did on Christmas Eve 1854. They had little and had buried some of their own, and they gave thanks under a tree. The society says many descendants of those founding families still live there, and the church still stands beside the oak.
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