Karol Brzostowski i jego Instytucja Rolno-Fabryczna Sztabińska

Abstract

Karol Brzostowski was born in 1796. His parents were Ewa Chreptowicz and Michał Hieronim. His grandfather was Joachim Litawor Chreptowicz – writer, poet, and activist of the Commision of National Education. Karol Brzostowski was a famous landowner in the first half of the 19th century. He was a farmer of the Sztabin estates. His greatest achievement in the field of industrial development was the establishment of the Sztabińska Huta settlement, in which there were: a factory of agricultural machines and tools; glassworks, foundry and a blast furnace. Karol Brzostowski was also an inventor and constructor. In his will, written on November 29, 1853, he granted Sztabin’s provincial landowners ownership of the land, and from the rest of the property he created the Factories Fund, called the Sztabińska Agricultural and Factory Institution. The Institution started operating on January 1, 1855, a few months after the testator’s death. Its property consisted of industrial plants and agricultural estates. A few years after his death, the Institution started to go bankrupt. In 1948, the remains of the Institution, in the form of a forest known as the Sztabin Parcellation, became property of the state. The main aim of this article is to present a short outline of the history of the Sztabińska Agricultural and Factory Institution. The most important source giving rise to its existence is the mentioned will of Karol Brzostowski. The Sztabińska Agricultural and Factory Institution was written about by, inter alia, L. Pietrusiński, J. Rółkowski, I.W. Kosmowska, J. Bartyś, G. Ryżewski, H. Zawistowska-Zacharewicz and S. Maciejewski. The files concerning the Sztabińska Agricultural and Factory Institution are located, among others, in the State Archives in Suwałki and the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw.