FERGUSHILL, BARBARA [SSNE 7712]

Surname

FERGUSHILL

First name

BARBARA

Nationality

SCOT

Region

Ayrshire?

Text source

Barbara Fergushill was the wife of the famous theologian Daniel Ernst Jablonski (1660-1741)and seems to have been living in the important town Lissa/Lezno in Poland, close to the border with Silesia and well known for its tolerance to Jews and Protestant minorities. There many Protestant refugees from Bohemia and Moravia had found refuge after the defeat of the Protestant forces at the Battle of the White Mountain 1620 including Jan of Nivnitz, later named Amos Comenius (1592-1670), who belonged to the Moravian Brethren and settled there in 1628 and helped to develope the academy of the Brethren there, finally leaving Lissa himself in 1656 after the town was destroyed in a great fire by Polish Catholic forces in the Polish-Swedish War. Hwe thereafter settled in Amsterdam. Peter Figulus Jablonski, a Bohemian/Moravian like Comenius, came from Jablunka in Moravia, married the daughter of Comenius. John Durie got to know both of them in The Hague and Peter Figulus Jablonski became the secretary of Durie for roughly seven years from 1636 to c.1643. Unlike Comenius the Jablonksi family retained its links with Lissa/Lezno. Johann Theodor Jablonski (1654-1731), older brother of Daniel Ernst Jablonski, was educated by his grandfather Comenius in Amsterdam. Both brothers also studied in Oxford c. 1680-1683. Daniel Ernst Jablonski became Rector of the Gymnasium in Lissa in 1686 and then went on to become Court Preacher in Königsberg and Berlin and in 1700 with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz co founder of the Societät (today Akademie) der Wissenschaften in Berlin. Daniel Jablonski married Barbara Fergushill in 1688 in Lissa/Lezno. The monument to him and his wife is preserved in the(reformed) Parochialkirche in Berlin (Mitte in the Klosterstraße opposite the (Altes) Stadthaus. Fergushill is a place in Northern Ayrshire, in the parish of Kilwinning and gave its name to the family Fergushill of that Ilk, lairds there until they died out in the male line there in the late 17th century. John Fergushill (1592-1644) was a Presbyterian minister and Covenanter and seems to have been killed in 1644 possibly during persecution of well known Covenanters by Royalist troops (under the Marquis of Montrose?) becoming a Covenanter martyr. It ispossible that the ancestors of Barbara Fergushill (her father?) as possible Covenanters may have fled to Poland/Prussia, as many other Covenanters or supected supporters in the 1640s or after the restoration of Charles II in 1660 and renewed persecution of Covenentars especially in southwestern Scotland. It is possible that the Fergushills may have been first in Elbing/Prussia where they may have got to know Comenius, there ca. 1642-1648 and possibly his son-in-law Peter Figulus Jablonski. As Lissa/Lezno was very tolerant in the 17th century it is therefore not surprising that Scots in exile were there, both Catholic and Reformed, there may have quite possibly been a Scottish community there as there were in many other Polish and Prussian towns. Sources: T. Fischer, The Scots in Germany, p. 222ff.; de.wikipaedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ernst-Jablonski; de.wikipaedia.org/Wiki/Johann_Theodor_Jablonksi This Biography was compiled by Angus Fowler.

Service record

POLAND-LITHUANIA, LISSA, LESNO, LEZNO

Arrived 1688-01-01

Capacity REFUGEE?, purpose MISC