Every early emigrant’s life reads like a story worth telling — and rightfully so. After all, no one would dare undertake such a journey without courage and a spirit of adventure.
I knew about Ivan Pylypiv and Vasyl Yeleniak, who left for Canada in 1891 and are officially considered the 1st emigrants from Ukraine. However, I have come upon a story of Agapiy Honcharenko recently – he came to live in the US much earlier, in the middle of the 19th century.
Let me share some insights here. If you find them interesting, you can find more details in the article by Euhen Rudenko at Ukrainska Pravda portal or DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. I am sure there’s much more to find out about this story.
Agapiy Honcharenko: Ukraine’s Forgotten Pioneer in America
At the close of the 19th century, chaos struck San Francisco’s Market Street. A man in a tall fur hat was ambushed by bandits who stole his Alaskan gold samples. Bleeding from the fight, he showed a reporter his bloodstained handkerchief and declared:
“After this bloodshed, $300 million in gold came to America from Alaska.”
The man’s name was Agapiy Honcharenko. Born Andriy Humnytskyi in 1832 in Ukraine’s Kyiv region, he would become the first well-documented Ukrainian emigrant to the United States—a rebel, journalist, and spiritual outcast whose story defies simple labels.
From Lavra to Exile
Andriy was a seminary graduate and a clerk at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, one of Ukraine’s holiest sites. But what he witnessed behind closed monastery doors shattered his faith in the institution.
“What kind of sanctity is this?” he recalled later. “Monks drunk on plum brandy… hiding women in their wardrobes.”
Even as a youth, he embraced vegetarianism and sobriety. He kept his distance from the rot he saw around him. Still, disillusionment drove him out.
Escape and Reinvention
In 1865, he arrived in Boston—just days before the attempt on Abraham Lincoln’s life. That same year, in Manhattan, he led the first Orthodox Christian mass ever held in New York City.
Taking the name Agapiy Honcharenko, he reinvented himself in exile. In San Francisco, he launched The Alaska Herald and a Ukrainian-language supplement, Svoboda. From the edge of the American frontier, he defended the rights of the Aleut people and wrote fiercely against injustice.
He was impossible to pin down. Some called him a Cossack. Others a dreamer. To many, he was simply a troublemaker with a printing press. But every letter he signed bore the words:
“Ukraina, Hayward, California, U.S.A.”
Apostle of Freedom
In 1894, he published his memoir: Memories of a Ukrainian Cossack-Priest. It ended with a defiant vision:
“My Mother Ukraine will rise again like the phoenix… The world will erase the name of the barbaric man-eaters from the face of the earth. With this faith, I will close my eyes and rise forever.”
By the end of his life, Honcharenko lived in near-total isolation on a windswept hill near Hayward, California. His home—named “Ukraine”—could only be reached by steep, battered mountain roads. It was here he remained, with his wife, far from the lands that shaped him, but never left his heart.
I find this story compelling for many reasons—especially because Honcharenko endured isolation, resistance, and constant pressure, yet never abandoned what he believed was right. Few people have that kind of resolve.
Andriy
Source and photo courtesy: https://www.pravda.com.ua/