What Ever Happened to Henry Hugh Fergusson?
We’ve been contacted by a researcher, Ken Nairn, in Scotland who’s been researching Elizabeth Graeme’s husband, Henry Hugh Fergusson. He’s provided us with a picture of his tombstone and a transcription of the inscription, which was made back in 1997 when it was less deteriorated.
The inscription reads as follows:
“Here is interred HUGH FERGUSSON Esq. Formerly of Graeme Park in Philadelphia and a Justice of the Peace for that County and latterly Barrick Master of Ayr d 20 Nov 1819 in the 71 yr of his age….. Was the second son of Rev ROBERT FERGUSSON of Castlehill”
Ken also supplied us with a copy of Henry’s will which was 26 (small) handwritten pages in a surprisingly easy to read script that had been copied into the record book by a scribe. The document provided us with a plethora of new information on Henry, including that he had three sisters – Mary & Elizabeth Fergusson and Henrietta Gosnell, owned a small 2-acre property in Mid Sands which he’d purchased in 1811, and fathered two sons – Thomas Hugh and Henry!
The two clips below read: “…and Henry Fergusson my Son, now or lately residing in the Parish of St. Mary in the Island of Jamaica…” and “I leave on the death of my said sisters to be divided equally between my son Thomas Hugh Fergusson now in the West Indies, and…”
Henry has been lost to us since leaving America after the Revolutionary War – at the end of her life, Elizabeth did not know if he was alive or dead and surely did not know of his sons. Oh Betsy, we have so much to catch you up on.