Vasil Eshcoff

Vasil Kozma Eshcoff was an emigrant from Ottoman Macedonia, known as a pioneer of the Coney Island hot dog in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was also briefly the second president of the Macedonian Patriotic Organization.

Biography

Vasil Eshcoff was born in 1882 in the Kostur village of Visheni,In 1897 Visheni was entirely under the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Exarchate. Both churches in the village, as well as the school, were Bulgarian. According to the statistics of Vasil Kanchov ("Macedonia. Ethnography and Statistics") in 1900 Visheni had 1150 inhabitants, all of them Bulgarian Exarchists. then in the Ottoman Empire. In 1910 he emigrated to Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, where he was involved in the work of the local Macedonian-Bulgarian society,According to the article ''Bulgarians/Macedonians'' in "Peopling Indiana: The Ethnic Experience." issued by the Indiana Historical Society, where Eshcoff is mentioned too, the early 20th century Macedonian immigrants in the State of Indiana, were pro-Bulgarian oriented in ethnic sense, including MPO, while the separate Macedonian identity was brought en masse by the new emigrants from Communist Yugoslavia at the eve of the 1960s. founded on November 21, 1921 by settlers from Kostur region. They initiated the establishment of the pro-Bulgarian Macedonian Political Organization in Fort Wayne on October 2, 1922.

At the Second Congress of the Organization, held in Indianapolis in the early September 1923, he was elected a president of the organization. The governing body also included - vice president, Mike Kozma - treasurer, Mihail Nikolov - secretary and Pavel Angelov from Chicago - adviser. Eshcoff was replaced at the next congress held in August-September 1924 in Fort Wayne by .

In 1927 in Fort Wayne the local organization of the MPO established a Macedono-Bulgarian school and he participated in the initiative. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Fort Wayne at the Bulgarian Diocese of Toledo.At the end of the Second World War, the Macedonian Patriotic Organization in Fort Wayne made efforts to establish a Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church. Initially the services were led by the visiting Archimandrite Kiril Yonchev. The first church board included Vasil Lichin, Nikola Gulov, Mihail Kozmov, Argir Lebamov, Dimitar Lebamov, Argir Kiprov, Vasil Ishkov, Toma Lazov and Lazar Laykov. The parish was officially founded in 1947.

Fort Wayne's '' Coney Island Weiner Stand'' where the famous Coney Island hot dogs are still offered was developed by Vasil Eshcoff and his partners from MPO Vasil Litchin and Kiriyak Geroff.

He died on June 15, 1961 in Fort Wayne. The restaurant he founded remains the hands of the Eshcoff and Choka families.

See also

* Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia
* Macedonian Americans
* Macedonian Bulgarians

Notes

Footnotes

External link

Македонски алманахъ. Индианаполисъ, Индиана, САЩ, Централенъ Комитетъ на Македонскитѣ политически организации въ Съединенитѣ щати, Канада и Австралия, 1940. (in pre-1945 Bulgarian ortography); ''Macedonian Almanac. Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, Central Committee of Macedonian Political Organizations in the United States, Canada and Australia, 1940.''


Fort Wayne's Famous Coney Island Wiener Stand
official website, history page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eshcoff, Vasil
People from Kastoria (regional unit)
People from Manastir vilayet
American people of Macedonian descent
Macedonian businesspeople
Macedonian Bulgarians
Bulgarian emigrants to the United States
Bulgarians from Aegean Macedonia
Macedonian emigrants