Lagrinka's Darkest Summer: The 1885 St. Hedwig's Riot
You've probably passed St. Hedwig's on Lagrange Street more times than you can count. Like so many of Toledo's churches, it holds the stories of weddings, baptisms, funerals, and generations of families finding their place in a growing city.
Here's what I didn't know: in June 1885, a fight over who should lead this parish turned deadly. And the church you're picturing today wasn't even there yet.
Folks often call it the "Polish Riot." But that label hides the real tale—a community divided against itself, and a parish that had to find its way forward after bloodshed and fire.
So start with the detail that's easy to miss. In 1885, St. Hedwig's wasn't the imposing stone landmark on Lagrange Street. It occupied an earlier church and school building on Dexter Street. The stone church came later.
At the Heart of Lagrinka
St. Hedwig's was established in 1875 as Toledo's first national parish serving Polish Catholic immigrants. Newcomers could worship in their own language and traditions, and a school helped anchor the congregation.
The North Toledo neighborhood around it took on a name of its own: Lagrinka, a Polish adaptation of Lagrange Street. For families building new lives here, parish affairs reached well beyond Sunday Mass. A decision about the church was a decision about the institution at the center of their community.
Father Vincent Lewandowski, the parish's first pastor, helped lay that foundation. Unfortunately, the congregation's early growth gave way to bitter disagreements. Ohio's historical marker links the unrest to divisions that arose as the parish grew and split, and a diocesan history published in 1903 describes increasingly fierce opposition to Lewandowski.
So Why Lewandowski?
Here's the frustrating part, dear reader: nobody wrote down exactly why. In a 2026 blog post, writer Dees Stribling quoted a historical handout he picked up at Milwaukee's St. Vincent de Paul Parish—the parish Lewandowski later led after Toledo. Even that handout admits the reasons for the opposition are unclear in the surviving records. But stir the silt a little, and a few clues turn up.
Start with geography. Toledo's earliest Polish families didn't settle in one place. One group lived in the north end and attended St. Mary's on Cherry Street. Another lived in the Nebraska Avenue district on the southwest side and worshipped at SS. Peter and Paul's on St. Clair Street. According to St. Anthony's 1957 Diamond Jubilee history, the plan was to unite both settlements in a single, centrally located parish at Collingwood and Monroe.
That's not what happened. The real estate firm of Macomber, Moore and McDonald offered Lewandowski lots on Dexter Street, and he took them. The jubilee book says that choice made the split between Toledo's two Polish neighborhoods permanent. If you lived out on Nebraska Avenue, your new Polish church was suddenly across town.
The southwest side did get its own church. In the fall of 1881, the Bishop of Cleveland directed Lewandowski to secure a site, and St. Anthony's opened on Nebraska Avenue in 1882—with Lewandowski as pastor of both parishes. But a second church didn't bring peace. The same jubilee history calls his Toledo years a time of achievement but great turbulence in both parishes. In March 1884, a riot left Joseph Michalak dead. Joseph Lisiakowski was indicted and later freed on a plea of self-defense.
That killing came roughly fifteen months before the violence most folks remember.
Was the priest himself part of the problem? There are hints. Lewandowski had been a Franciscan in Poland but separated from the order before coming to America in 1874. Years later in Milwaukee, according to a local Polish history, he resigned from St. Vincent de Paul in a fit of anger in 1899, blaming what he called intrigue by "the Galician." One bitter parting could be bad luck. Two, in two cities, start to look like a pattern.
None of that settles the question. What we do know is that by 1885, Lewandowski reportedly wanted out. Stribling, quoting from the same historical handout obtained at Milwaukee's St. Vincent de Paul Parish, says the priest repeatedly requested reassignment—and Bishop Richard Gilmour denied him each time. The handout also describes a bomb discovered beneath the rectory in June 1885.
Let that sink in. A disagreement over parish leadership had become dangerous enough to threaten lives.
A Dispute Turns Deadly
On June 28, 1885, it boiled over. Accounts describe a dispute in the Szelaszkiewicz Brothers' Saloon across from St. Hedwig’s that spilled into the surrounding streets, where rival parish factions turned an argument over church leadership into deadly violence.
What set it off? Some retellings, including Lou Hebert's "This Week in Toledo History" column, say the riot broke out over the suspension of a priest. That column doesn't name him. And since the Milwaukee handout says Lewandowski resigned, the spark remains an open question.
What began as a struggle inside a congregation became a police matter. People were killed. Others were injured. Dozens faced arrest.
How many died? Here's where the record gets cloudy. The account commonly repeated for June 28 lists two deaths. However, Ohio's historical marker and the 1903 diocesan history describe three deaths connected to the 1885 unrest. Either way, this was a tragedy within a close-knit community.
The arrests moved the dispute into court—but charges alone don't tell us how the cases ended. Preliminary examinations and decisions to hold defendants for further proceedings were steps toward trial. They weren't verdicts of guilt.
The Priest Who Stayed—For a While
Here's a detail that surprised me. The riot didn't make Lewandowski vanish from Toledo overnight. In its July 11, 1885, edition, The Blade announced that the priest from the "recently demoralized St. Hedwig's Polish church" would preach the following day at St. Francis de Sales in Father O'Reilly's place.
Do the math. Less than two weeks after the violence, he was still scheduled for another Toledo pulpit.
He did eventually leave for Milwaukee—resigning first, according to the parish handout Stribling quoted. There he served at St. Hyacinth and later became the first pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Parish, established in 1888. His ministry carried on, even as St. Hedwig's back in Toledo struggled with the aftermath of its divisions.
Now, a rabbit hole worth a quick peek. Milwaukee had its own parish conflict that year. On September 21, 1885, The Blade reported a "Church Row" between factions of that city's St. Hedwig's Polish church society—knife wounds, injuries from stones and clubs, and six church members arrested and jailed. Same parish name, same year, entirely separate incident. The report doesn't establish any connection to Lewandowski or the Toledo riot.
Fire and a New Beginning
Then came February 1886, when fire devastated the original St. Hedwig's church.
Was it arson? Later retellings sometimes say so. But the 1903 diocesan history states that no one had ever proved whether the fire was accidental or deliberately set.
Fortunately, the parish rebuilt. Father Joseph M. Koudelka oversaw the church's restoration and brought the congregation together. On June 27, 1886—one day short of a year after the riot—the building was rededicated, and Father Simon Wieczorek became pastor.
The fire also left gaps in the parish's records, though it didn't erase all of them. Baptism and marriage records survive from 1875. The surviving death records begin in February 1886, the same month as the fire.
Within a few years, the congregation was ready for a larger church. Construction of the Sandusky bluestone building on Lagrange Street began in 1891, and it was formally dedicated on April 23, 1893.
That's the church you know. It became a lasting landmark of Toledo's Polish community, known to generations through its school, its celebrations, and their family milestones. Those families inherited a parish whose earliest years were far more turbulent than its stone walls let on.
Remembering the Whole Story
The riot belongs in Toledo's history. So does what came next. Families returned to worship. Children returned to classrooms. A congregation that had endured a deadly rupture built again.
So the next time you pass St. Hedwig's on Lagrange Street, remember both chapters—the division that tore an early parish apart, and the folks who rebuilt it.
Now you know the backstory too.
Sources and editorial notes
Toledo Polish Genealogical Society, "St Hedwig Church"
BGSU Center for Archival Collections, St. Hedwig Catholic Church records, MS-0812
George F. Houck, A History of Catholicity in Northern Ohio and in the Diocese of Cleveland (1903), pp. 651–653, online transcription
Ohio Historical Marker 34-48, text reproduced at Waymarking
F. S. Legowski, 1882–1957 Diamond Jubilee of St. Anthony's Parish, Toledo, Ohio (1957)
Dees Stribling, "St. Vincent de Paul Parish & Ascension Lutheran Church, Milwaukee", Been There, Seen That, September 30, 2026 (quotes a parish handout from Doors Open Milwaukee)
John Smallshaw, "St. Vincent de Paul Parish", Kuryer Polski, September 24, 2020
Lou Hebert, "This Week in Toledo History – June 28–July 4", The Press
The Blade, July 11, 1885 (Lewandowski scheduled to preach at St. Francis de Sales) and September 21, 1885 (Milwaukee "Church Row")
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