!SOURCE: Rev. Thomas Whyte, AN HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL
ACCOUNT OF THE BETHUNES OF THE ISLAND OF SKYE, Edinburgh, 1778,
reprinted London, 1893, by Alfred A. Bethune-Baker, reprinted by
ScotsPress, pp. 15, 16-17.
Ferquhard third son of Kenneth Bethune of Leabost, had a liberal
education. He became minister of Croy near Inverness, and continued in
that capacity for 27 years. He died the fifth of February, 1746, in the
52nd year of his age, of a apoplectic fit as he was walking home to his
own house. He laboured under an irregular ague, attended with a complex
of other diseases for 15 years before his death, and consulted Doctors
Boerhaave, Clark, Sinclair, and many others of the most eminent
physicians, but all to no purpose. Amidst the severity of his distemper,
it pleased God most remarkably to support him in the discharge of his
office, in which he seldom failed, to the surprize and admiration of all
who knew him. His piety and christian prudence, joined with the
chearfulness and humanity of his disposition, recommended him to the
love and esteem of all his acquaintances, but more especially those of
his own parish, whos regard for his memory, will not soon or easily be
obliterated.
Notwithstanding his bad state of health, he discovered always a strong
turn for antiquity, and in particular, made it his business to be well
acquainted with the accounts and genealogies of his tribe and kindred.
He married Margaret Rose, eldest daughter of John Rose of Newton, a
near relation of Kilravock, chief of the sirname, a family that has
continued since the reign of Alexander the Second. Hugh Rose, first of
the family of Newton, died in the year 1682. He was the third son of
Robert Rose fourth son of William Rose twelfth laird of Kilravock, by his
wife Lilias Hay of Dalgatie, descended of the family of Errol. [Manuscript
History of the Family of Kilravock].
By her he had two sons, Hugh and John, and three daughters, Elizabeth,
Jean, and Janet.