If you were to walk down the 75 year old stair steps to the banks of the Cooper, off of Route 30/130 exit road, you would immediately notice these three Polish memorials. They are officially located at Park Drive and Route 130 in Pennsauken, NJ, but actually are on Park Avenue. You could take the stone stairs down from Route 130 if you were on foot, but it is better to park along the road at Park Avenue.
The monument is shrouded by low-lying bushes which surround the front and back. There are two stone benches in the front which sit to the right and left of the statue. The left bench, along the front reads, Polish American Citizens Club. The right bench along the front reads, Polish American Congress, South Jersey Division. The fading bronze marker reads, "Monument of Count General Casimir Pulaski. originally erected City of Camden - October 11, 1935. Rededicated November 14, 1952 by the American Congress South Jersey Division." The top of the monument features a bust of the General. 1936 is engraved in the stone in the middle part of the monument.
The monument was originally located in Pulaski Park, just southeast of Cooper Hospital, on Haddon Avenue. The birth of the Pulaski monument began on On October 1, 1936 when the Polish community in Camden announced that a monument to Casimir Pulaski would be dedicated on October 11 of that same year. The Pulaski Monument was placed at a park that lay at the aforementioned area of Benson Street and Haddon Avenue. The park came to be known as Pulaski Park.
When Camden's Pulaski Park was designated to be the site of a new medical school, the monuments that were there had to be relocated. The South Jersey Division of the Polish American Congress, along with Polish Army Veterans Post 121 and the Polish American Citizens Committee raised funds to move the Pulaski Monument to a new site, at Park Drive and Route 130 in Pennsauken, NJ in 1984. A new monument to Thaddeus Kosciusko was dedicated that October as well. This sits to the far right.
The two original monuments to Thaddeus Kosciusko and Casimir Pulaski (this waymark) were joined in 1995 by a new monument dedicated to those members of St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church located at 10th & Liberty Streets in South Camden who gave their lives for our country in World War II. Information from a plaque inside the church was the basis for this monument. This monument is to the immediate right of this memorial is a gray-black stone erected by the Polish American Congress, South Jersey Division. To the far right sits the Thaddeus Kosciusko memorial/monument.
There is a scan of the full article from the courier post from October 1, 1936 which covers the story of the Pulaski monument and its dedication. There is also information about the other two Polish monuments. The article can be found here --> (
visit link)
Within this park, there are about two dozen more unique an distinct memorials from Christopher Columbus to a Holocaust memorial and everything in between. Parking is pretty easy as there is a huge shoulder of which most people take advantage. There is a jogging trail which passes all the memorials as well. A major attraction further down the banks is a terror memorial which features small monuments dedicated to all the recent terror attacks in the last twenty years or so situated inside a large structure which allows people to walk around and read each plaque.
About the Man
Casimir Pulaski was born in the late 1740s in Warsaw, Poland. In his native country he fought against Imperial Russia, winning fame and the respect for brilliant and daring attacks on the Russian forces attacking his country.
With recommendations from Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette, in 1777 Pulaski joined the American War for Independence. On September 15, 1777, he was commissioned a Brigadier General and made "Commander of the Horse." He is considered the "Father of the American Cavalry." At largely his own expense, he formed an independent cavalry and infantry corps in Baltimore, known at the time as "Pulaki's Legion." While leading a cavalry charge against the British at Savannah, Georgia, he was mortally wounded on October 9, 1779.