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RADZILOW, an urban settlement,
formerly a town, in the district of Szczuczyn, commune and parish of Radzilow,
on the Wissa River, not far from that river's mouth flows into another river -
Biebrza, on the Western extreme of the Biebrza Marshland. Near Radzilow, a small
river Matlak and its tributary - Kubrzanka, falls into the Wissa. The distance
from Radzilow to Szczuczyn is 19 versts [a Russian measure of distance = 1.07
km. or 0.66 miles]. There are in Radzilow: a wooden parochial church [Catholic],
a synagogue, an elementary school and a communal administration office. A
communal tribunal and post office are in Szczuczyn. The town-like settlement of
Radzilow has 163 houses, 1859 inhabitants (930 men and 929 women) and 1987 morgs
[a unit of land measure equal to 5600 square meters] of land belonging to the
townsmen. In the year 1827 there were in Radzilow: 101 houses, 784 inhabitants;
in 1858: 124 wooden houses, 1539 inhabitants (including 658 Jews). In 1858 the
income to the town's treasury was 407 rubles and 32 kopecks, the value of the
fire insurance of the houses was [in total] 20,950 rubles [Russian money].
Radzilow is one of the oldest settlements of the Wizna Region. For centuries
there was a fortified prince's castle, near the border of Prussia. A town grew
around the castle. In the year 1466, one day after the St. Stanislav's Holy Day,
Konrad the Prince of Mazovia changed the law-status of the town from that of a
Polish-law to a German-law status, by a privilege issued at Wizna. The citizens
of the town had been obliged to pay rental, a half-sexagene of a gross, from
every cultivated cornfield, as well as six bushels of oats and three bushels of
barley. Apart from that, the Radzilovers had to repair the Prince's dike at the
river named in the document as "Slucz" (The Mazovian Code 236, 237). The
[Catholic] church and the parish of Radzilow were supposedly erected by Prince
Janusz of Mazovia in 1482. The present church was built in 1740. In 1660
Radzilow became a part of the Ostroleka Starosty [starosty is an administrative
unit in Poland] and this was written down in the document: ob.t. VII, 691. There
was also a local tribunal to judge the cases of the population, as Radzilow was
a small district in the Wizna Region. Despite being so small, the district of
Radzilow had its own administrative and judicial officials. In 1885, the
Radzilow-owned land (A) in the vojtostwo [the office-area of the head of a group
of villages] comprised 400 morgs, including: 309 morgs of arable land and
orchards, 73 morgs of meadows, 12 morgs of pastures and 6 morgs of wasteland;
there were 12 wooden houses and 1 water-mill. The parish of Radzilow, belonging
to the dekanate [deanery of the Catholic Church] of Szczuczyn, numbered 2435
"souls" [believers]. The commune of Radzilow numbered 4497 inhabitants [in the
town and in the villages] and its whole area was equal to 10,232 morgs. The
Radzilow commune's Tribunal (district I) and the Post Office station were at
Szczuczyn. The commune of Radzilow comprised of the following towns and
villages: Borawskie, Brodowo, Czerwonki, Karwowo, Kieljany, Kownatki, Kramarzewo,
Mikuty, Mscichy, Ostrowik, Radzilow, Rydzewo, Slucz, Swiecenin and Zakrzewo. As
to the social composition of the towns and villages: 3 of them are inhabited by
petty gentry, 7 - by a mixed population, and the remaining settlements - by
peasants only. |
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Editor's notes or definitions are
entered in [brackets].
(Parentheses) in the translation appear here as they appeared in the original
text.
Translated from Polish by:
David M. Dastych. Edited by: Jose Gutstein.
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