The Jakobides

In 1587 one of Hannß’ grandsons, Jakob I (1544 to 1611; Jakobides), used his thus acquired wealth to found the “J. Schilling Trading Company” in Schneeberg in the Ore Mountains, and until 1690 the branch in Frankfurt/Oder prospered under his sons’ and grandsons’ management.

His son Jakob II is the ancestor of the Oppurg line of Thuringia. In founding a shipping company in Hamburg, “Matthaeus Schilling Kauffahrthey founded 1647”, his grandson Matthaeus (1623 to 1647) carried out the great plans of Jakob I. He had taken advantage of the middle Oder and Elbe waterways to Hamburg in order to send his ships to the Netherlands and England. This sub-branch became extinct.

Jakob III (1625 to 1701), one of Matthaeus’ brothers, however, had 11 children. He was the owner of the Schilling Company in Frankfurt/Oder, the trading posts and branches in Kiev, Samarkand and Beijing.

His son Jakob IV (1660 to 1742) “collected” manors in Saxony, Silesia and Poland. The “Proschwitz Line” is named after their ancestor’s Proschwitz Manor near Meißen.

After he was knighted by the Emperor Karl VI (like his distant cousin Christian Ludwig II four years earlier), in 1729 his son Christian … Ludwig III (1691 to 1742) joined the Austrian military. As a captain of the Infantry Regiment “Graf Merci” he became famous when he broke through the Turkish lines on the River Danube.

Christian’s eldest brother Adam was heir to the large Schilling estate, and he is the donor of the large Schilling family library.

His grandson Friedrich Gustav I wrote several novels, stories, dramas and poems and he made the family tree of 1807/27. It is quite remarkable that in the Napoleonic War he met his brother, the French lieutenant-colonel and later general, Friedrich Ludwig, on the battlefield near Jena in 1806.

Friedrich Gustav’s grandson Johannes (1828 to 1910) is the famous iron-founder. He made, for instance, “The Four Times of Day” in Dresden, the Niederwalddenkmal in Rüdesheim, the King Johann Monument, the Panther Quadriga on Semper’s Opera House in the Saxon Capital and the Wilhelm I Monument in Hamburg.