HJR 2 – AS INTRODUCED
2005 SESSION
04/09
HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 2
A RESOLUTION declaring February 12 to be Thaddeus Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko day.
SPONSORS: Rep. Currier, Merr 5; Rep. Daniuk, Hills 11
COMMITTEE: Executive Departments and Administration
This house joint resolution declares February 12 to be Thaddeus Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko day.
05-0865
04/09
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Five
A RESOLUTION declaring February 12 to be Thaddeus Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko day.
Whereas, Thaddeus Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko (Kosciuszko) was born on February 12, 1746 in the town of Zaosie, Poland; and
Whereas, Kosciuszko was one of the first European volunteers to aid the American revolutionary cause in 1776; and
Whereas Kosciuszko was a brilliant Polish military engineer, who designed and constructed fortifications to help defeat the British, most notably at Saratoga where he fortified Bemis Heights overlooking the Hudson, and developed ingenious designs which contributed to the surrender of 6,000 troops under General John Burgoyne; and
Whereas, Kosciuszko undertook the defense of the Hudson at West Point and there made fortifications so thorough, that the British never mounted an assault on the Point; and
Whereas, at the end of the Revolutionary War, Kosciuszko was promoted to Brigadier General and received Congressional recognition honoring his meritorious service; and
Whereas, after the Revolutionary War, Kosciuszko returned to Poland and led his own countrymen in a failed attempt to free them from foreign oppression, was seriously wounded in battle, and imprisoned in Czarist Russia; and
Whereas upon his release from Czarist Russia, Kosciuszko was exiled from his native Poland and returned to the United States; and
Whereas, while in the United States, Kosciuszko spent the majority of his time in Philadelphia, and received many admirers including Thomas Jefferson, eminent architect Benjamin Latrobe, and constitutional convention statesman William Paterson; and
Whereas, in 1798, Kosciuszko left the United States to return to Poland but never arrived, instead dying in exile in Switzerland in 1817; and
Whereas, Kosciuszko’s last will and testament executed on May 5, 1798, in its entirety, reads: “I, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, being just in my departure from America, do hereby declare and direct that should I make no other testamentary disposition of my property in the United States thereby authorize my friend Thomas Jefferson to employ the whole thereof in purchasing negroes from among his own as any others and giving them liberty in my name in giving them an education in trades and otherwise, and in having them instructed for their new condition in the duties of morality which may make them good neighbors, good fathers or mothers, husbands or wives and in their duties as citizens, teaching them to be defenders of their liberty and country and of the good order of society and in whatsoever may make them happy and useful, and I make the said Thomas Jefferson my executor of this;” now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:
That February 12 be declared as Thaddeus Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko day; and
That cities and towns in New Hampshire plan appropriate commemorative celebrations in honor of Thaddeus Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko.