John Sobieski (U.S. colonel)

John Sobieski (September 10, 1842 – November 12, 1927) was a Polish-born American soldier, attorney, and politician in the Prohibition movement.

In 1879, he married a prominent abolitionist and prohibitionist Lydia Gertrude Lemen, an American from Salem, Illinois.

Through his wife's affiliation, he became a leading member of the Polish branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and preached against alcohol in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois to prohibition-camps.

[3] Sobieski was also a leader in the organization of the International Organisation of Good Templars, and near the end of his life, claimed to have "organized two thousand and eighty-six lodges of Good Templars, and taken into the order ninety thousand members"[3] Sobieski and the predominantly Protestant Christian Temperance groups never made great inroads into the Polish community.

In addition to being active in Republican politics while living in Minnesota, Sobieski also helped organize the Prohibition Party there.