Czolgosz’s Early Career

The President’s Assailant Was Born in Detroit.

     Detroit, Mich., Sept. 10.—From 1874 to 1875 the family of Leon Czolgosz, the assailant of President McKinley, lived in Detroit, and former neighbors assert that Leon was born here in the summer of 1874. A search of old city directories resulted in locating the Czolgosz family at 141 Benton street in 1874. Inquiry in this neighborhood developed several people who had known the family. J. J. Lorkowski, a prominent Polish saloonkeeper, lived across from the Czolgosz family on Benton street, and knew the father well. He is sure that the boy who was born in the Benton street house in 1874 was Leon. Lorkowski says that Czolgosz moved to Posen, Mich., near Alpena, in 1875, going later to Alpena. If this information is correct, Leon Czolgosz is 27 years of age, instead of 28, as he asserts. When this was pointed out to Lorkowski, who is a very intelligent man, he said that many Polish boys did not know their age, and he presumed Czolgosz was not sure of his. If Leon was born in Alpena, as has been thought, he is not over 26 years of age, as the family did not move there until 1876.