Babimost

Babimost grew near a crossing of the marshy Leniwa Obra, on the western edge of Greater Poland. Władysław Jagiełło granted the royal town Magdeburg rights in 1397. German-speaking Protestant refugees from Silesia later settled here, adding to a community whose trades included shoemaking, linen production and the cultivation of hops and vines. Swedish troops devastated Babimost in 1656; its starosta, Krzysztof Żegocki, was among the first to organise resistance to the invaders. Prussia annexed the town in 1793.