Ks. Ignacy Barszcz founded the Polish parish of St. Anthony in Jersey City, NJ in 1884 and directed it until September 1887. That same year, it was he who suggested that a separate Slavic diocese to serve the ever increasing number of Eastern European immigrants be formed in the United States. This idea was strongly opposed by Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, Archbishop Ireland of St. Paul and Bishop Sebastian Messmer of Milwaukee, all of whom believed in the necessity to Americanize the immigrants. (Later, Revs. Waclaw Kruszka and Jan Pitass - to mention two of several priests - would carry Barszcz's idea a step further and call for the installation of Polish bishops in dioceses where that population was significantly large.)

1890-1891 parish registers of St. Stanislaus, B.M. and St. Adalbert Parishes, both in Buffalo, NY, show that Barszcz did in fact minister in Buffalo during that period. 1893 saw him serving as a break-away priest at Sweetest Heart of Mary Church, an "Independent" parish in Detroit, MI, under the leadership of Ks. Dominik Kolaskinski. Barszcz, while in New Jersey, was lured to Detroit by promises made to him by Kolasinski. (The latter was later reinstated in the Roman Church, but only after a lon and controversial period as an "Independent".) In August 1894, the elderly Barszcz had to obtain police assistance to gather his possessions from Kolasinski's recotry and left Detroit.

The last known whereabouts of Barszcz appear in Kruszka's Historya which notes that the "Niezalezny priest died in a hospital late in 1902 in the Jersey City area where he was serving a break-away parish."