BROTHERLY LOVE AT PHILADELPHIA – THE WIDOW PRIEM AND THE ALTERNATIVE BRAKFONTEIN CONGREGATION
by Mansell George Upham © – Helderstroom Farm, Bosjesveld, Villiersdorp (1 May 1999) and updated Tokyo, Japan (June 2019)
The historic farm and homestead at Brakfontein [originally Brakke Fontein] served as a separate place of worship – away from the main church at Philadelphia – to the motley throng living amongst the dunes at the Blue Berg. What happened to these people who once worshipped at Brakfontein on land donated by the Widow Priem? The Christian charity and piety of Anna Wilhelmina Ausserhoffer, notwithstanding, respectability finally overtook humility resulting in the dispersion of the dune folk.
This article investigates the diaspora of a penumbral genealogically-linked microcosm – too dark to be accepted as ‘white’, too light to be accepted as ‘coloured’…
During the married life of Gerhardus Priem (1823-1885) and his wife, Anna Wilhelmina Ausserhoffer (1817-1893), the reputedly haunted farm Brakfontein – adjacent to the Koeberg nuclear power station at Duinefontein – served as an alternative gemeente (congregation) to the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) at Philadelphia (consecrated on 9 January 1864). Mej.[uffrouw] de Wed.[eduwe] wijlen den heer G.[erhardus] Priem continued this tradition at Brakfontein after the death of her husband in 1885.
The Widow Priem and her late husband were my maternal great-great-grandparents.
The farm Brakfontein is registered in the Cape Town Deeds Office as De Brakke Fontyn Now Brakke Fontein.[1] It is situated behind the Blue Berg near the village of Philadelphia in the district once known as the Distict of D’Uban (het Distrikt van D’Urban). Prior to that it fell administratively under the Fieldcornetcy of Blaauw Berg in the Cape District.
The farm was bordered by the following original farms:
- Wit Zand[2]
- Melk Post
- Bloembosch Fontein[3]
- Drie Fontein[4]
- Lange Rug[5]
- Donkergats Rivier[6]
- Brakke Kuil[7]
- Aan de Overzyde van de Zout Rivier aan de Blaauweberg[8]
- Duine Fontein
- Achter de Blaauwberg aan de Spring Fontein.[9]
… Hebben tevoren zaamgeleefd in ongehuwden Toestand …
When the church building (kerkgebouw), donated in 1887 by the Widow Priem to the church at Philadelphia, was not used “now and then” (… nu en dan …) for religious worship, it served as a school. For weddings the itinerant dominee even used the voorhuis of this forgotten Cape Dutch opstal.
Weddings were something extraordinary. The voorkamer provided a special shelter for repentant couples – either tired of living in sin or persuaded to desist from such living. These were finally, albeit belatedly, united in legitimate wedlock with the blessing of den Heer Gert Priem and Anna, his wife (and later widow) – away from the disapproving gaze of the more ‘respectable’ parishioners at the church in Philadelphia.
Hebben tevoren zaamgeleefd in ongehuwden Toestand (‘lived together in an unwed capacity’) is an expression that I shall always associate with the voorkamer of Brakfontein.
Judging from the registers of the church at Philadelphia, the richer, more respectable, members of the Brakfontein Gemeente still braved the journey to Philadelphia for notable ceremonies such as baptism, confirmation and marriage.
Sadly, Brakfontein’s impressive opstal (homestead) is no more. Dr E.E. Mossop once noted the farm having an ‘interesting’ mid-18th century homestead. Some outer buildings, however, can still be found on the werf (yard). A fire in the early 1960s gutted the opstal and left only foundations, side walls and a slave bell. Recent ‘cleaning up operations’ by the SANDF (Army), which now uses the farm as a shooting range, have resulted in these ruins and even the foundations being bulldozed and needlessly flattened. The outer buildings are now in use as a private residence for the opsigter (overseer) and for storage. The old familiebegraafplaas (family cemetery) is no more.[10] There are still some ‘volk’ (‘Cape Coloured’ farm labourers) and labourer cottages (volkshuisies) further afield. The remaining farm labourers and the latest overseeing occupants are all adamant that Brakfontein is haunted – both inside the existing buildings and outside.
Thanks to the American, Arthur Elliott (1870-1938), photographs of the opstal at the turn of the century (or sometime thereafter) are in existence.[11] Regrettably, the opstal’s vernacular architectural relevance has not received attention by the experts. This is not surprising, however. The entire area has also received scant attention. Researchers and business people prefer rather to concentrate on the more accessible, lucrative and ostensibly gracious Cape Dutch estates of the Boland winelands.
Although my maternal grandfather Jacob (Japie) Gerhardus Ausserhoffer Junior Priem (1895-1976) was born in the opstal (homestead) at Brakfontein – and so too his father (after whom he was named): Jacob Gerhardus Ausserhoffer Priem Senior (1858-1916) – our family has little memory of its long, but crucial, association with this historic farm.
The Eeufeesalbum of the DRC Philadelphia provides an institutionalised, self-edifying explanantion for the creation and demise of the Brakfontein Gemeente:[12]
… Wykskerk vir die Duine
Tydens sy tienjarige dienstyd alhier het ds. Botha deur die genade van die Heer besonder geseënde werk verrig in die gemeente, wat hom steeds die grootste agting en liefde toegedra het. Dit was bv. op sterk aandrang van hom dat die kerkraad in Januarie 1887 besluit het om vir die minderbevoorregte Duinebewoners ‘n gebou op te rig wat kon dien “als school lokaal en eene plaats waarin nu en dan Godsdiensoefeningen gehouden kan worden.” Die weduwee G. Priem van Brakfontein het vir die doel ‘n stuk grond aan die kerk gegee en in September van die volgende jaar is hierdie buitekerkie ingewy deur ds. P.A. Strasheim. Hierdie kerkie het vir etlike jare as skool- en kerkgebou van die Duinemense diens gedoen. Toe die bevolking in latere jare daar verminder het, was die kerkraad egter genoodsaak om die maandelikse buitediens aldaar af te skaf en die kerkie te sluit. Aan die begin van 1938 het die Kerkraad die kerkie verkoop …
Already during the ministry of Ds. P.A. Strasheim (1882-1883) Brakfontein had begun to evolve into an alternative congregation. Soon after Strasheim’s arrival the church council decided the following:
… De wijkdienst in de Duinen wordt bepaald op den laasten Zondag der maand … in plaats van de gewone middagdienst te Philadelphia …
Concerning Strasheim, DRC archivist Ds. A.P. Smit relates that:
… veral die minderbevoorregte “Duine”-bevolking het hy op sy hart gedra en gereeld een keer in die maand vir hul ‘n buitediens op Brakfontein gehou ten huise van mnr. en mev. G. Priem.
Daar’s ‘n hele klomp brakke op Brakfontein …[13]
But who were the people that worshipped at Brakfontein? Not only were these people remiss in conforming to the traditional, conservative and austere requirements of the church at Philadelphia, they were also poorer bywoner folk – mixed race and invariably less white-looking than their richer, land-owning brethren attending the main church at Philadelphia. They were also related by blood or marriage to the Widow Priem and her husband – people that even if they wished to ignore, could not be disregarded entirely.
These were a fringe group, not quite dark enough or poor enough or distantly related enough to be classified or regarded as being ‘Kleurling’. At the same time, they were not respectable enough to be accepted or allowed to remain within the bosom of the family.
Ds. A.P. Smit, DRC archivist and author of Koeberg se Eeufees 1863-1963, refers to these people as the underprivileged Dune people or inhabitants. In his book they are not grouped with the people he terms Kleurlinge and appear not to have been the target of any DRC missionary zeal or sendingswerk.[14] The Moravian Church at Mamre (Groenekloof), it will appear later, seems to have adopted only some of these people.
As officiating minister for the Phildalephia DRC congregation (1936-1942), Ds. A.P. Smit was in a privileged position to be more specific about this peculiar group that formed part of his flock. In 1938 (the year of the symbolic Ossewatrek) his council decided to shut down forever the school and church building at Brakfontein.
Significantly, in that same year, the church council expressed reservations about sharing the kerksaal (church hall) of the moedergemeente (mother congregation) with their ‘Coloured’ brethren. Consequently and already by October that year, a sendingkerk (mission church) was built attracting even people from Mamre, Pella and Katzenberg. During the consecration of this church, we are informed that Ds. Smit himself announced that the monies for the:
… boufonds in hoofsaak uit vrywillige gifte van blanke sendingvriende gevind is; voorts het hy “ernstig gewaarsku teen die kommunisme wat ‘n dreigende gevaar, veral vir ons Kleurlinge word, en gemaan tot versigtigheid” …[15]
The following year the Kerkhof (church cemetery) – which had an adjacent, but separate section, for the ‘Coloured’ population of Philadelphia – was closed for further burials and provision made for a new cemetery for these people on the other side of the village. The decision was never implemented, however, and a new but separate kerkhof was opened just to the east of the old Kerkhof.
The reason Ds. Smit provides for terminating the Brakfontein Gemeente, viz a dwindling Dune population, begs further enquiry.
What caused this decrease in population?
Genealogical research reveals that the Duinemense of the Blaauwberg area were a curious microcosm – already quite self-contained genetically. The genealogical ramifications are complex with the following families, if not mostly descending from Gerhardus Verwey (1767-1843)[16] and his 1st cousin-wife Christina Johanna Brand[17], then related by marriage. Their numerous descendants came to bear or acquire surnames such as:[18]
- Verwey
- Priem
- Vink
- Fraser
- Dawson
- Bodkin
- Rygaard
- Zagers
- Nagel
- Hayes
- Van Graan
- Schietekat
- Stoffberg
- Borsteed
- Everts
- Laing
- Jacobs
- Luke (Loock)
- Fritz
- Keur (Keer)
- Stadler
Members of these interrelated families were predominantly bywoners all eking out an existence on Brakfontein and surrounding farms:
Laatste Stuiwer, Hartebeestkraal, Wittesand, Melkpost, Blomboschfontein, Donkergat, Groot Springfontein, Klein Springfontein & Duinefontein.
Their occupations ranged from shepherds, karweiers, togtgangers, houtkappers, looyers (tanners), dagloners (journeymen), lime burners, and charcoal makers and tending to salt pans. The high degree of fuel providers point to a group of people who, prior to the introduction of the Australian Port Jackson plant, helped denude the region of it sparse vegetation to create more dunes.
The writer is of the opinion that even recent revisionist and supplementary historiographical studies on the peopling of nearby Mamre remain inchoate.[19] These studies ignore the confluence of genealogical, racial, ethnic, cultural, social and economic complexities that make up the peopling of that area and beyond – including de Vlakte naar Blaauwberg and achter de Blaauwberg. In trying to set the historical record straight, new history is being written up that continues to mislead. Such historiography still views certain groups of people separately – divorced from their milieu and genealogical matrix. No attempt has been made to incorporate the lot of people such as those who emerged from the Blue Berg dunes.
History of the farm Brakfontein
The historic farm and homestead at Brakfontein served as an alternative place of worship to the motley throng living amongst the dunes at the Blue Berg. Let us trace the history of the farm, its registered owners and its increasing bywoner component – all of whom were invariably genealogically interrelated.
During the VOC-period the farm Brakfontein behind the Blaauw Berg and across the Little Salt River, was the oldest and one of the grandest farms in the Cape District. It was an important and strategic grazing site for cattle to be slaughtered at the Compagnie’s Posts at the Groenekloof (the present-day Mamre).[20] Already during the period 1709-1712 the Cape burgher Gerrit Jansz: Visser (from Ommen) was issued numerous grazing licenses.[21] The farm later also served as an important stop-over place for travellers between Cape Town and the northern districts.[22] In the Journal of Rhenius (1724), we read:
… We left at 6 o’ clock this morning and proceeded to the farm of the widow Ten Dam, named Brakkefontein, where we outspanned to allow the cattle to graze a little.
And in the Journal of Brink (Saturday, 24 April 1762) there is mention of stopping over at the Widow ten Damme’s farm [A]an de Brackefonteyn.
The doctor and Company official-farmer, Willem ten Damme (1650-1714)[23] was a powerful figure at the Cape during the time of Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel. His influential wife, Helena Gulix known as Leen de Schout, was no exception either. Their association with Brakfontein is briefly mentioned in the Dictionary for SA Biography:[24]
… Later when he concentrated on cattle and sheep farming, he obtained pasture along De Reboksfontein in De Groene Clooff as well as De Brakke Fonteijn of fifteen morgen behind the Blouberg; to this his wife added fifteen morgen and 500 square rood, and on it kraals, houses, and pens were built … According to the inventory of Ten D.[amme]’s estate … [t]he homestead on his farm at the Koeberg and that on his farm at Wynberg were valued at 5 000 guilders each …
Priviledged in terms of special concessions and licences, they were important meat providers in the so-called Slagtersveld (an alternative name for the Sandveld and Strandveld regions of the western Cape). This region supplied the VOC at the Cape with most of its meat requirements. That Brakfontein later came to be owned by VOC-approved butchers, a most lucrative occupation, is no coincidence. That monopoly in meat would remain crucial in the same area almost to the present-day, ironically, manifests itself in the exceptional increase in land-owning on the part of the meat and cold-storage magnate, Sir David Pieter de Villiers Graaff, 1st baronet (1859-1931).[25]
In 1766 Francina van Aarde(n)[26], the widow of Dirk Verwey with her five children brought to her 2nd husband Jan Jurgen Kotze[27] two farms beyond the Blaauwberg: Brakkefontein and Springfontein. Dr E. E. Mossop adds the following comments:[28]
… They fringe the rocky coast which is here indented with beaches of white sand, and, inland with miles of scrub country more suitable to cattle-farming than for wheat. Brakkefontein is the farm mentioned in 1724 by Ensign Rhenius … as that of the widow Ten Damme, Springfontein adjoins it and both farms, which have interesting mid-eighteenth century homesteads, lie not far from the road from Cape Town which leads to Mamre.
In terms of their joint will[29] they bequeathed the two farms to her son Dirk Verwey Dirksz. Thereafter Brakfontein came to be owned by the butchers Johann Friedrich Veyll (from Plüderhausen in Württemburg) and Johann Martin Dürr[30] (from Schweigen in the Palatinate) who in turn sold the farms to Dirk Gysbert van Reenen in 1819.[31] On 15 January 1827 the adjacent farm Donkergats Rivier was granted to Dirk Gysbert Verwey.[32]
While in the possession of Van Reenen, we have documentary evidence of the Verwey, Schietekat and Vink families all residing on Brakfontein and Springfontein, presumably as bywoners. For example:
- Already in 1813 we find resident at Brakfontein & Klein Springfontein 4 hours distance from Cape Town, Gerhardus Verwey & Christina Johanna Brand resident as bywoners at Brakfontein with the following household in the Opgaaf Rol for that year: 1 Man & 1 Vrouw 2 zoons > 16; 5 dochters; 1 Hottentottin > 14;5 trek ossen; 1 wagon; [33]
- on 27 Aug 1831 Gesina Maria Vink (the daughter of Franciscus Vink & Gesina (Geesje) Maria Verwey) was born on Brakfontein;
- on 10 April 1832 the baptismal register of the Groote Kerk (Cape Town) informs us that Andries Schietekat (the son of Jan Mauritz Schietekat & Petronella Barendina Bruyns) was geboren op de plaats genaamd Brakfontein onder’t Kaapsch district [DRC/A]. Prior to 1819, J.M. Schietekat and his wife were resident at Schoenmakersgat in the Kaapsche Duynen [this appears to be an alternative name for Klein Springfontein].[34]
We shall see later that these families, especially through marriage, could consolidate their situation substantially.
Brakfontein: enlarged in terms of Perpetual Quitrent Grant
The Deeds Office records the history of the farm as follows:
De Brakke Fonteyn Now Brakke Fontein No. 32 Cape fol. 32/1 Area: 2892 mg. 500 Sq.R.
fol. 510
Registered Freehold & Perpetual Quitrent Owners of Brakke Fontein 1846-1998
- Carel Frederik Johannes[35] & Frederik Willem Richert (1846)
- A. Kirsten (already in possession by 1850)
- Barend Johannes Schietekat (Portion 1 only) (1855)
- Gerhardus Priem & Franciscus Vink (1855)
- Gerhardus Priem (1868)
- Anna Wilhelmina Ausserhoffer (wid. G. Priem) (1886)
- Church Wardens, DRC Philadelphia (portion with school & church building only) (1892)
- Jacob Gerhardus Ausserhoffer Priem Sr. (1894)
- Pieter Watney Cloete (1898)
- William Richard Plumby Gird (1906)
- Francois (‘Boy’) Jean van Helsland [sic – Helslandt] Duminy (1906)
- Roelof Abraham Zederberg Duminy (1918)
- Marthinus Cloete (1922)
- Johan Frederik van der Spuy (1933)
- William Vernon Basson (1938)
- William James Bennie Pienaar & Johannes Francois Burger (smaller portions) (1952)
- Hester Basson, born Smit (remaining portion) (1962)
- Basbrak (Pty) Ltd (1973)
- Willem Vernon Basson (1985)
- Division of the Cape (1985) [SANDF (Army)]
On 10 July 1846 a grant of 2892 morgen 500 square roods was made to Carel Frederik Johannes (half share) and Frederik Willem Richert (half share).[36] Both individuals are still unidentified. The Cape Farm Register does not reflect how the farm came to be owned by one A. Kirsten[37] after Johannes and Richert.[38] We know that he was already in possession of the farm by 1850 by which time the adjacent farm Donkergats Rivier was already in the possession of Barend Johannes Schietekat (1809-1898).[39] On 1 February 1855 A. Kirsten sold a portion of Brakfontein (known as Portion 1 of Brakke Fontein) to his neighbour Barend Johannes Schietekat.[40]
Owners of Portion 1 of Brakke Fontein
- Barend Johannes Schietekat (1855)
- Jan Johannes Priem (1884)
- Johannes Jacobus Kriegler, Jacobus Hendricus Blankenberg & William John Watney (1894) (joint owners)
Barend Johannes Schietekat (1809-1898) was born in the Cape District and baptised at the DRC Cape Town on 9 December 1810, the son of Jan Mauritz Schietekat and Petronella Barendina Bruyns. He was married to Christina Maria Vink, the daughter of Franciscus Vink from Brughes, Flanders & Gesina Maria Verwey. He first farmed at Springfontein, then at Donkergat and finally at Rozenboom where he died 13 October 1898. His brother, Nicolaas Hendrikus Schietekat (born 1821), also lived on Brakfontein during his brother’s time of ownership. His daughter Gesina Maria Schietekat was born (31 July 1870) on Brakfontein and this family continued living there even after the farm was sold to Jan Johannes Priem (1844-1919).
Children of Barend Johannes Schietekat (1809-1898) & Christina Maria Vink (1822-1909)
- Jacobus Lourens Schietekat (1841) unmarried
- Barend Johannes Schietekat (1843) unmarried
- Franciscus Schietekat (1845-1907) – farmer at Brakkuil
marries 1st cousin Johanna Susanna Vink (1848-1920)
daughter of Franciscus / Francis / Francois Christiaan Vink & Catharina Lydia Stoffberg
- Jan Mauritz Schietekat (1847-1887) – farmer at Roosboom & De Grendel married Charlotta Johanna Louisa Holtman
- Gesina Maria Schietekat (born Donkergat 1850) married her double 1st cousin Hendrik Johannes Schietekat (1854) – farmer at Bosmansdam
- Pieter Joseph Schietekat (born Donkergat 1851) married Dorothy NN
- Petronella Barendina Schietekat (1853) married Stephanus Petrus Basson
- Christina Johanna Schietekat (1855)
- Elizabeth Jacoba Schietekat (1857) married her double 1st cousin Jacobus Cornelis Schietekat farmer at Papkuilsfontein
- Hendrik Johannes Schietekat (1860-1900) – farmer at De Grendel married his double 1st cousin Petronella Barendina Schietekat
- Cornelis Johannes Schietekat (1863)
- Nicolaas Johannes Schietekat (1866) – unmarried
- Andries Johannes Schietekat (1868) – infant
- Andries Johannes Schietekat (1870) married Lenie Spies
The Priem family takes possession of Brakfontein
The fine old homestead which had belonged to the Priem family…
– C. Louis Leipoldt, from his novel Stormwrack
On 1 February 1855 Gert Priem and Frans Vink became the owners of the remaining portion of Brakfontein which they had purchased from A. Kirsten.[41] On the same date A. Kirsten sold a portion of Brakfontein (known as Portion 1 of Brakke Fontein) to his neighbour at Dokergats Rivier Barend Johannes Schietekat.[42]
Barend Johannes Schietekat (1809-1898) was a son-in-law to Franciscus Vink (who hailed from Brughes in Flanders) – being married to his daughter Christina Maria Vink (1822-1909). He was also a double brother-in-law to Gert Priem: his sister, Petronella Barendina Schietekat (1830-post 1872), having married (1stly) Gert’s younger brother, Hendrik Andries Priem (1826-ante 1865), and (2ndly) another of Gert’s younger brothers, Franciscus Priem (1834-1906).
Franciscus Vink was an uncle by marriage to Gert Priem. The latter’s mother, Hermina Johanna Verwey (1802-post 1885), was sister to Vink’s wife, Gesina Maria Verwey (baptised 31 August 1800).
Children of Frans Vink from Brughes, Flanders & Geesje Verwey
- Christina Maria Vink (1822-1909) married Barend Johannes Schietekat (1809-1898)
- Pieter Josef / Joseph Vink (1824-1891) married Elizabeth Jacoba Schietekat (1827-1878)
- Francois / Franciscus Christiaan Vink (born Brakfontein 1828) married (1) Catharina Lydia Stoffberg; married (2) Jacomina Claasina Louw, née Laubscher
- Gesina Maria Vink (born Brakfontein 1831-1898) married Hendrik Johannes Schietekat (1819-1902)
On 18 April 1868 Franciscus Vink sold his half of Brakfontein to his nephew Gerhardus Priem. Gert now owned the whole of Brakfontein – except for Portion 1 of Brakfontein.[43]
Gerhardus Priem was born at Blaauwbergs Valley [44] 27 January 1823 and baptised Gerhardus Matthijs at the Groote Kerk, Cape Town 30 November 1823. The farm where he was born was the scene of the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806. He was the son of Johannes Hendrik Priem and Hermina Johanna Verwey – humble folk. His widowed mother was to outlive him and live to a ripe age. He was the grandson son of Heinrich Prien alias Hendrik Priem who hailed from Schmalstede in Danish Holsten [in the present-day Schleswig-Holstein, Federal Republic of Germany] and the Cape-born Neeltje Catharina van den Berg. When still a minor he married Anna – the Widow Priem and subject of this article – with his mother’s permission at the Groote Kerk, Cape Town 20 December 1841.
Anna Wilhelmina Ausserhoffer – the Widow Priem – was born at Kop van Groen River on the slopes of the Katzenberg on 15 June 1817 and baptised Johanna Wilhelmina at the DRC Zwartland (Malmesbury) 7 September 1817. She was the daughter of a Catholic father, Jacob Ausserhoffer (from Karlstadt am Main in the prince-bishopric of Würzburg in Unterfranken)[45] and the Lutheran Cape-born Sophia Zeeman.
Gert and Anna had 9 children, of whom 8 lived to marry. They drew up a joint will on 26 March 1862.
Children of Gert Priem and Anna Ausserhoffer
(1) Sophia Jacoba Priem (1842-1921)
married Johannes William Jubelius son of Johannes William Jubelius & Maria Johanna Vos – 14 children
(2) Jan Johannes Priem (1844-1919)
Farmer at Donkergats Rivier & Portion 1 of Brakfontein
married his 1st cousin Maria Theresa Hayes (1839-1908) daughter of Catharina Maria Ausserhoffer & Michael Hayes from Cork, Ireland – 6 children
(3) Hermina Johanna Priem (1845-1875)
married Johannes Cornelis Jacobs son of Hendrik Johannes Jacobs & Sara Maria Sadie grandson of the Bastaard Hottentots Frans Jacobs & Catharina Alexander
(4) Gesina (Geesie) Dorothea Priem (1847-1929) – never married
(5) Anna Wilhelmina Priem (1849-ante 1888)
married Dirk Hill van Rhyn de Goede son of Hendrik Nicolaas Kotze de Goede & Aletta Maria Johanna van Rhyn
(6) Christina (Chrissie) Jacoba Priem (1851-1917)
married Nicolaas Hendrikus Schietekat son of Nicolaas Hendrikus Schietekat & Christina Johanna Fraser
(7) Maria Elizabeth Priem (1853-1921)
married her 1st cousin Michael John Hayes (1848-1934) son of Catharina Maria Ausserhoffer & Michael Hayes from Cork, Ireland
(8) Gerrendina Catharina Priem (born 1855; died in infancy)
(9) Jacob Gerhardus Ausserhoffer Priem Sr. (1858-1916)
married Maria Catherine Holloway (1863-1939) daughter of Henry Edward Holloway & Margaret Jacoba Laing and great-granddaughter of the Bastaard Hottentots Frans Jacobs & Catharina Alexander
On 20 February 1884 Barend Johannes Schietekat sold Portion 1 of Brakfontein,[46] together with the farm Donkergats Rivier to the eldest son of Gert and Anna, Jan Johannes Priem (1844-1919). Gert and Anna thus made provision for an equitable division of land to each of their sons before the death of their father.
Gert Priem died at Brakfontein 10 August 1885 (aged 66 years & 6 months) and is likely to be buried on the farm. The farm Brakfontein was valued at £ 1500.0.0. That he and his wife worshipped at the main church at Philadelphia is evident from the Liquidation & Distribution Account of his estate: £ 1.18 was owing voor de Kerk Bank.
Anna and Gert Priem provide brotherly love away from Philadelphia
During his time (1882-1883) as minister at the church at Philadelphia, Ds. P.A. Strasheim performed the marriage rites of at least three couples already living in sin in the dunes at the Blaauwberg.The ceremonies – all Na Huwelyksgeboden – were solemnised in the voorhuis of Brakfontein. Significantly Gert Priem signed as witness in all three instances.
Recorded Marriages (DRC Philadelphia) in’t voorhuis te Brakfontein
24 April 1882: Hebben tevoren zaamgeleeft in ongehuwden Toestand Michael Dawson [47]; 45; Metselaar; Zoutvallei gemeente Philadelphia en Christina Johanna Verwey [48]; 36; Zoutvallei gemeente Philadelphia; getrouwd in’t Voorhuis te Brakfontein (Philadelphia) door my P.A. Strasheim K.D.M. In den tegenwoordigheid van [signed] N.J. van Niekerk & [signed] G. Priem.
24 April 1882: Hebben tevoren zaamgeleeft in ongehuwden Toestand Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey [49]; 67; Karweyer; Witzand Gemeente Philadelphia; Sophia Jacoba Priem [50]; 45 Witzand Gemeente Philadelphia; getrouwd in’t Voorhuis te Brakfontein (Philadelphia) door my P.A. Strasheim K.D.M. In den tegenwoordigheid van [signed] N.J. van Niekerk & [signed] G. Priem.
8 May 1882: Hebben tevoren zaamgeleeft in ongehuwden Toestand Matthys Nicolaas Everts [51]; 53; Karweyer; Witzand Geemente van Philadelphia & Sophia Dorothea Luke; 30; Witzand Gemeente van Philadelphia getrouwd in’t Voorhuis te Brakfontein (Philadelphia) door my P.A. Strasheim K.D.M. In den tegenwoordigheid van [signed][signed] J.P. van der Spuy & [signed] G. Priem
C. Louis Leipoldt and the rich widow Priem …
Who was the rich widow Priem described by C. Louis Leipoldt in his unfinished novel Stormwrack? Was she Anna Wilhelmina Ausserhoffer – the Widow Priem who donated land at Brakfontein for the building of a church and school for the poor folk living amongst the dunes at the Blue Berg? One wonders whether C. Louis Leipoldt ever had Brakfontein and the real widow Priem in mind when writing (in English) his unfinished 2nd Anglo-Boer War novel entitled Stormwrack? [52] Research into the Priem family (a rare name in South Africa and relatively small Cape family) reveals no other contemporaneous widow Priem of note who could have inspired Leipoldt.
What is remarkable is the coincidence of a Widow Priem (the surname being most rare), the reference to her fine old homestead and the mention of make-shift religious gatherings – also by a travelling Catholic priest – in a rural setting. Is it also coincidence that some members of the Ausserhoffer, Priem,and Nagel families had married into the Irish Hayes and Dawson families becoming practising Catholics? Widow Priem was the daughter of a Catholic Franconian winemaker who farmed (with vineyards) nearby on the slopes of the Katzenberg on a farm named Kop van Groenrivier – now the site of the Pella Mission Station, near Mamre. The Ausserhoffer family had already undergone a religious metamorphasis within two generations: Catholic, Lutheran and finally Dutch Reformed.
Leipoldt alludes to the rich widow Priem on three occasions in his novel Stormwrack:
… Here and there a farm had become noted for the good quality of the wine produced; one, indeed, had achieved a reputation that extended beyond the boundaries of the District. This was the old Knolkloof farm from where, in the early part of the century, Everardus Nolte, formerly known as Amadeus Tereg, the public executioner, had settled down to become a shining light of the community. With the help of a vagrant teacher of French descent, one Pierre Mabuis, who had reformed from the role of what Pastor Uhlmann would have called ‘potator strenuus’ and had subsequently married the rich widow Priem, Everhardus had planted a noble vineyard and made excellent wine [p. 46] …
… The drought brought penury to many farmers in the District.One or two sold their farms for what they would fetch and departed to other districts, some to the diamond diggings that lured every penniless vagrant and every gambling spirit to misery and riches, and others to the Transvaal where the chances for the adventurous were said to be equally great. The fine old homestead which had belonged to the Priem family, and had by marriage passed into the hands of old Pierre Mabuis, was sold [p. 65] …
… Once a year a Roman Catholic priest came down by post-cart from Cape Town and said mass in Crawley’s workshop to a very small congregation of the faithful, some of whom travelled many miles to attend. The Village regarded this with the same good humour with which it looked upon the Loyal League. It had never been fiercely hostile to Roman Catholicism, for it had for many years had a highly respected member of the faith, the first indeed with whom it had become acquaintained, in the person of the eccentric Pierre Mabuis who had married the rich widow Priem. Indeed, the presence of so many different creeds and denominations as were to be found in the Village had tended to increase the traditional tolerance of which the community, not without reason, boasted. German, French, Hanoverian, English, Swede, coloured Hottentot and Griqua, ritualistic Anglican, almost equally ritualistic Lutheran, dour Calvinist, Roman Catholic, Salvationist and Wesleyan – they were all to be found in the District in microscopic minorities so far as the creeds were concerned, for the community was preponderantly Dutch Reformed and as such Calvinistic, but the mixture blended and nothing had hitherto happened to make its various components separate out into antagonistic sedimentary layers … [p. 93]
The Widow Priem and Brakfontein
After Gert Priem’s death, his widow was to remortgage Brakfontein in order to stand security to her eldest son Jan Johannes Priem now farming next door at Donkergat.[53] The arrangement enabled each son to farm adjacently, but separately.
The records inform us that the widow was indebted to Pieter Joseph Vink in the sum of six hundred pounds sterling arising partly (500) from money lent to pay off a previously existing debt and partly (100) from money lent for other purposes. 6% per annum interest was to be paid yearly as from 1 April 1886. Relying on lawyers, she signed two powers of attorney with a cross.
As security she provided a 1st mortgage, viz.:
Certain place called Brakkefontein situated in the Cape District behind the Blauwberg together with a certain piece of Perpetual Quitrent Land situated as above between Blauwberg and Groenekloof surrounding the said place Brakkefontein, measuring as per remaining extent 33 morgen and 442 square roods of Freehold and 2111 morgen of Perpetual Quitrent land more fully described in a Deed of Transfer passed in favour of the Appearer’s Constituent on this day.
A 2nd mortgage was also taken out:
… whereas the late Gerhardus Priem did by his Attorney Jacobus Christoffel Wessels on the 29th February 1884 bind himself in solidum as surety for and joint pincipal debtor of a certain Mortgage Bond for the sum of One thousand three hundred pounds sterling passed on the same day by Jan Johannes Priem in favour of Pieter Joseph Vink and did further bind as collateral security for his said suretyship the undermentioned landed property.
And whereas the appearer’s Constituent the said Anna Wilhelmina Priem born Ausserhoffer widow of the said Gerhardus Priem has taken over the undermentioned landed property as surviving spouse and as having been married in community of property to the said Gerhardus Priem, and the said Pieter Joseph Vink has consented to the Transfer thereof to her on condition of her binding herself in solidum as surety for and principal debtor of the aforesaid Mortgage Bond of 1300 pounds sterling and mortgaging the undermentioned landed property as collateral security for such Suretyship.
Pieter Joseph Vink[54] was 1st cousin to Widow Priem’s husband. Known as Koebergsbank (ie the Bank of Koeberg) according to family tradition, he was a very wealthy man. Family lore relates the story that he found treasure washed ashore at Blaauwberg Strand. The high degree of intermarriage between the Vink and Schietekat families in particular (and to a lesser extent between the Schietekat and Priem families) helped keep the wealth within the family.
On 5 October 1886 Brakfontein was formally transferred to the Widow Priem.[55] In 1887 Widow Priem donated the land and the school / church building to the DRC Philadelphia. But at whose instigation this charitable act came about is not known. Already in January that year the church council decided to provide for the spiritual guidance and education of the less advantaged people in the dunes. Did the idea and offer come from Widow Priem herself? Did the church convince Widow Priem to sacrifice part of her landed property? What might Widow Priem have gained from relinquishing such property?
Decisions affecting the Brakfontein Gemeente can be gleaned from the Notule (Minutes) of the church at Philadelphia. For example, we see how the leraar was to be escorted on a rotational basis by members of the Church Council:[56]
Gewone Vergadering 4 Julij 1887
Op voorstel van br.[oer] Dreyer gesecondeerd door br.[oer] Loubser besluit de Kerkraad tot de leeraar voortaan beurtelings door de Kerkraad leden vervoerd zal worden als hij naar Brakfontein gaat om aldaar Godsdienst oefening te houden.
By September 1888 the church/school building was consecrated by Ds. P.A. Strasheim (then stationed at Wynberg) who appears to have been invited back to Philadelphia in recognition of his initiatives in creating the Brakfontein Gemeente. Since he had perfomed the marriage rites in the voorhuis of Brakfontein for at least three dune couples already living in sin, he would have been on friendly terms with the Widow Priem and her late husband.
Only by 9 January 1890, however, did the Church Council take any serious steps to finalise the Widow Priem’s offer to donate the school and church building and the land on which it stood:[57]
Gewone Vergadering 9 Januarie 1890
Heb woordt om voor zitter en den br.[oer] G.P.C. Loubser opgedragen om het stukje grond door Mej. de Wed. wijlen den heer G. Priem aan den Kerkraad geschonken en waarop het School-en Kerk-gebouw te Brakfontein staan te laten meten en op den Kerkeraad te laten transporteeren.
The formal transfer was only registered on 18 May 1892. According to the Deed (No. 2372), 156 Sr 36 S.F. were transferred by A.W. Priem to the Church Wardens, Duch Reformed Church Philadelphia.[58] Why did the transfer take so long? In view of the fact that Widow Priem was already an old woman soon to die (she died on 31 March 1893), it appears that the Church was intent to secure its claim on the land – before it was too late and should her heirs change their minds. At the same time, the council never really considered the Brakfontein Gemeente to be of any great importance. Perhaps it was more of a headache but one that could not as yet be ignored.
Widow Priem died at Brakfontein on 31 March 1893 aged 74 years and 9 months. The death at Brakfontein of Widow Priem meant the winding up of her estate which was promptly done by her two sons, Jan Johannes Priem and Jacob Gerhardus Ausserhoffer Priem Sr., under the watchful eye of Pieter Joseph Vink.
Shame an’ Sorrow in da Familee … Brakfontein after the Widow Priem
Following the death of Widow Priem, the Church Council at Philadelphia saw fit to investigate the affairs of the widow’s niece, who also happened to be her double sister-in-law and her daughter-in-law’s sister: Sophia Jacoba Priem, née Hayes.[59] The loss of Widow Priem’s protection allowed for open censure from the church broeders.
A former houvrou and presumably widowed, Sophia had been married in the voorhuis of Brakfontein by Ds. Strasheim in 1882 to the widower Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr. The Church Council incorrectly refer to her as Sophia Jacoba Verwey gebore [sic] Priem.
In a meeting on 26 March 1894 the Church fathers were informed that their appointed commission had failed to persuade her to return to her husband Gert Verwey. She was now living with Jan Nagel.[60] The situation had taken a turn for the worse as the commission had been informed by Jan Nagel’s father, oude Jan [sic] Nagel [whose name is later correctly given as Christiaan Nagel][61], that Abram Michiel Ackerman had repeatedly committed adultery with his daughter Elizabeth Fraser, born Nagel[62] synde hy dikwyls met haar alleen in haren slaap kamer geweest.
Why Sophia turned to the Nagel family is not entirely clear. She was, however, related to them on several levels. Two of her paternal aunts were married to brothers of Christiaan Marthinus Nagel: Mary Hayes was married to Jan Nagel[63] and Elizabeth Catharine Hayes married Pieter Johannes Nagel.[64]
The Church council appears to have been confused, if not bewildered, about the motley assembly that flocked together at Brakfontein. Members of the Verwey, Fraser, Nagel and Stoffberg families, although Dutch Reformed and members of the local church, were obliged to baptise their illegitimate offspring (of which there seemed to be an unusually high proportion amongst the Brakfontein Gemeente) at the English Church, either at Cape Town or Papendorp (later Woodstock). And then there were those with Irish connections that fell back onto Catholicism from time to time. Next door at Bloemboschfontein, the Scottish – but already indigenised – Laing family of Widow Priem’s daughter-in-law, vacillated between Presbyterianism and the Dutch Reformed persuasion.
Small wonder that the commission was unsuccessful in resolving the controversy confronting it. Sophia Hayes-Priem-Verwey was censured indefinitely and barred from partaking of any of the holy sacraments. The Church had to admit failure when it came to tracking down Jan Nagel, who frankly confessed that he did not know his given names! Being illegitimate, he was probably unaware that he had been baptised in the St George’s English Church in Cape Town. His father, offering no intelligence in this regard, confused the situation by calling attention instead to the adulterous behaviour of his daughter, who was Jan Nagel’s sister.
But this was not the last time that the Church was to interfere in the personal lives of its Brakfontein parishioners and get its genealogical facts wrong.
Jacob Priem inherits Brakfontein and its ‘church’ from the Widow Priem
The farm Brakfontein (minus Portion 1) was inherited by Widow Priem’s 2nd son and youngest child: Jacob Gerhardus Ausserhoffer Priem (1858-1916). The farm was transferred into his name (16 May 1894).[65] By that time Jacob Priem and his wife, Maria Catherine Holloway (Polly), were the parents of 4 children. They were to have 5 more children.
Jacob’s wife, Polly, was the eldest daughter of Henry Edward Holloway (1839-1921) and Margaret Jacoba Laing (1840-1907) and granddaughter of George Holloway (1807-1879) from Arundel, Sussex, England and his wife, Johanna Susanna Engelbrecht (1812-1848).
On her mother’s side, she was the granddaughter of James Laing (1802-1889) from Markinch, Fife, Scotland and Maria Hendrika Wilhelmina Jacobs (born 1802). It was her maternal great-grandfather the Bastaard Hottentot Frans Jacobs (1765-1851), married to Catharina Alexander (1769-1860), who was granted the farms Bloemboschfontein (in 1813 & 1836) and Melk Post (in 1837).
Children of Polly Holloway (1863-1939) & Jacob Priem (1858-1916)
(1) Margaretha (Maggie) Jacoba Priem (1886-1973) never married
- Gerhardus (Gert) Johannes Jacobus Priem (1888-1952) married Elizabeth Hendrina van Niekerk
- Henry George Priem (1891-c.1903)
- Anna (Anne) Wilhelmina Priem (1893-1965) married Henry Home Ley Pentz
- Jacob (Japie) Gerhardus Ausserhoffer Priem Jr. (1895-1976) married Gertrude Christiana Dale daughter of Robert Vaughan Dale from Winchmore Hill, Middlesex, England & Iconetta Christina Marais)
- George James Priem (1895-1965) never married – emigrated to Australia
- Maria Catherine Priem (1900-c. 1906)
- Sophia (Dolly) Jacoba Priem (1902-1985) married George William Allen
- Johanna (Jo / Joey) Isabella Priem (1905-1994) married Michael Thomas Kennedy
At least one wedding ceremony is recorded at Brakfontein during the ownership of Jacob Priem. On 23 November 1897 James Philip Marthinus Dawson[66], a 24-year-old houthakker at Uildam married in het Kerkgebouw te Brakfontein the 22 year-old Maria Catharina Rijgaard[67]. Little had changed, it seems, for the minister felt obliged to mention that at Brakfontein this was yet another case of zij hebben samengeleefd in ongehuwden staat. Both bride and groom were related to the owner of Brakfontein.
Blombos and the Road to Mamre …
The late Dr John (Jack) Edward Holloway[68], 1st cousin to Polly, my maternal great-grandmother, recalled an impression made by the grandeur of Brakfontein:[69]
… About Jacob Priem I came across a reference in a letter from one of my sisters which said that Jacob lived in a fine old Cape Dutch House, of which even the floors were of teak, at a farm called Blombos [sic], near Klipheuwel …
Blombos appears to be a mistake. This was the adjacent farm and birthplace of Jacob’s wife, Polly Holloway and the opstal (also photographed by Arthur Eliott[70]) was a lot humbler in appearance. Looking at earlier maps, however, there appears to have been a constellation of dwellings at Blombos – a settlement sufficiently large enough for the surrounding area to be associated with the same name. The adjacent farm Wit Zand similarly provided living space to a great many of the fuel-gathering families living in the dunes.
Hans Fransen has little to say about Bloembosch at Philadelphia:[71]
… The proximity to Cape Town of this minor homestead shows in its gable-less look and the andy soil. The place, which is no longer standing, had a delightful “homemade” look about it. But why were the trees cut down? …
The above caption he adapted in a later publication of Elliott’s photographs:[72]
… It is the proximity to the Cape Peninsula which shows in the gable-less look of this minor homestead – and in the sandy soil? With the irregular fenestration the place has a delightful ‘homemade’ look about it. The casements point to an 18th [sic] century date …
What he did not know is that Bloemboschfontein was strategically positioned. Anybody taking the road from Cape Town leading to the Groenekloof would have to pass through Blombos. The farm, together with the adjoining farm Melk Post, had been granted to a Bastard Hottentots Frans Jacobs (1765-1851) and his wife of slave-origin, Catharina Alexander (1769-1860).[73] In 1813 and 1836, he was granted 10 morgen and 84 morgen & 251 square roods, respectively which became consolidated as Bloembosch Fontein. The opstal (homestead) at Blombos – later found in ruins by the author and more recently flattened and developed – was probably built by Frans Jacobs himself. In 1837 he was granted the adjacent Melk Post, a farm of 2166 morgen. Widow Priem’s daughter-in-law, Polly Holloway, was the great-granddaughter of Frans Jacobs and Catharina Alexander. The Widow Priem’s son-in-law, Johannes Cornelis Jacobs (1840-1877) – who married her daughter, Hermina Johanna Priem (1845-1875) – was the grandson of this very same landowning aboriginal-non-European couple. He farmed at the neighbouring farm Brakkuil (Brakke Kuil) currently in possession of the Schietekat family.
The road north continues through the farm Hartebeest Kraal (the present-day Atlantis), then through the outspan Pape Kuils Vley and then passes through Groenekloof and the Moravian mission station at Mamre. Alongside, veering to the right en route to the Katzenberg (the present-day Pella Mission Station), were the farms Uitkyk or Drooge Plaat, Kop van Groenrivier and Geelbosch Fontein. The farm belonging to Widow Priem’s father, Jacob Ausserhoffer – Kop van Groenerivier – was bordered on either side by farms associated with the freed slave Floris Johannes Frits and his Hottentot wife, Maria and their Loock, Rygaard, Zagers and Smith descendants, some of whom later also came to own Blombos. These families all worshipped at Brakfontein.
The Priems give up Brakfontein
On 12 April 1898 Jacob Priem sold Brakfontein to Pieter Watney Cloete.[74] In 1894 already and again in 1898 mortgage bonds were registered against the immovable property of Jacob Priem as his economic situation worsened. He then moved to the neighbouring farm Klein Driefontein which he hired throughout the duration of the 2nd Anglo-Boer War and until 1904 when he was declared insolvent.[75] In this time Jacob and Polly lost two of their children to diphtheria. Family recollection of these events has proved to be difficult to verify. Both my maternal grandfather, Japie Priem, and his younger sisters, Dolly Allen and Joey Kennedy, recalled the graves of their siblings, Henry James Priem and Maria Catherine Priem, being situated at Klein Driefontein. These graves have not been found and are more likely to have been at Brakfontein where unidentified family graves are known to have existed.
My great-aunt Dolly Allen, née Priem, recalled family experience of the visits by the Brits and the Boers to the family’s farm at the time of the 2nd Anglo-Boer War. The British soldiers were described as being gentlemen while the troublesome Boers and rebels as uncouth – thereby revealing a typical bias towards the Colony and the English, Scottish and Irish admixture with the family. On the Priem side of the family, there were Irish relatives by marriage. On the Holloway side, there were both English and Scottish antecedents. Whatever the British required of them was ‘given’. Whatever was needed by the Boers, was ‘taken’.
The devastation caused by the 2nd Anglo-Boer War – even at the Blue Berg – resulted in the economic ruin of most of the farmers. Members of my grandfather’s generation when interviewed, invariably ascribed, rightly or wrongly, the wealth and influence of the De Villiers Graaff family to the baronet’s business acumen and ‘collaboration’ with the British. By buying up all available livestock and supplying meat to the British, his contribution was invaluable to the war effort. As a result the baronet also came to own much of the land at the Blaauw Berg.
Jacob and Polly Priem and their family left the Blue Berg in 1904, first settling at Fair View (aka Hillcrest). Locally known as Holloway’s Hoogte, this farm was at Kuils River (formerly Michell’s Village). Situated near Sarepta, the farm was a portion of the original farm De Cuilen. The farm belonged to his father-in-law, the shoemaker Henry Edward Holloway (1839-1921), and his Bloemboschfontein-born wife, Grieta Laing (1840-1907). The death of Polly’s mother in 1907 was followed by Polly’s father being declared insolvent.[76] Jacob and Polly Priem (together with old man Holloway) finally moved to Maitland thereby ending the family’s rural past and severing its ties with Brakfontein.
Jacob Priem’s elder brother, Jan Johannes Priem (1844-1919), likewise fell victim to creeping, if not rapid, liquidation. Mortgage Bonds were registered in the years 1884, 1894, 1895 and 1898. Finally in 1909-1910, he was declared insolvent by which time the family had urbanised and relocated to Parow.[77] Jan Johannes Priem sold (10 May 1894) Portion 1 of Brakfontein, together with Donkergat to three partners:
- Johannes Jacobus Kriegler,
- Jacobus Hendricus Blankenberg and
- William John Watney[78].
The partners soon sold the farm Donkergats Rivier, minus Portion 1 of Brakke Fontein which they sold (28 May 1898) to Nicolaas Hendrikus Schietekat Jr..
Nicolaas Hendrikus Schietekat Jr. & the Brakfontein Church 1898-1908
The tradition of the ‘separate-but-unequal’ Brakfontein Gemeente was continued by Claas and Chrissie Schietekat. Claas Schietekat was married to Widow Priem’s daughter, Chrissie Priem. They continued farming with their sons on Brakfontein until about 1917. The farm, however they sold (11 March 1908) to Adrian Johannes Abrahamse.
Children of Claas Schietekat (born 1855) & Chrissie Priem (1851-1917)
(1) Anna Wilhelmina Schietekat (1880-1909) – never married
- Nicolaas Hendrikus Schietekat (1880-c.1932) married (1) Francina Johanna Helena Bester; married (2) Anna Jacoba Elizabeth Mostert
- Gerhardus Johannes Schietekat (1881-1909) – never married
- Jan Johannes Schietekat (1883-1914) married Belia Johanna Jacoba Ackermann
- Jacob Gerhardus Ausserhoffer Schietekat (1885-1938) married Elizabeth Anna Hyndman from Australia
- Christina Jacoba Schietekat (1886) married Dirk Greeff
(7) Sophia Jacoba Schietekat (1887)
(8) Gesina Dorothea Schietekat (1890)
On 25 July 1899 yet another wedding took place in het Kerkgebouw te Brakfontein. This time it was another relative, Maria Elizabeth Verwey[79] – daughter of the censured Sophia Jacoba Hayes! Aged 23 and residing at Zandfontein, she married the 21-year old houtkapper living at Groot Springfontein Christoffel Johannes Rijgaard.[80]
On 5 January 1906 the Church Council again sat to consider den Heer N. Schietekat’sletter concerning the school at Brakfontein. On 19 June 1906 another wedding took place. The bride was none other than the granddaughter of the censured Sophia Jacoba Hayes. The groom was a 2nd cousin to the bride:
Jozef Johannes August Bodkin[81], 28, bachelor, houtkapper at Hartebeest Kraal married in het Schoolgebouw te Brakfontein Sophia Jacoba Maria van Graan[82], 22, spinster at Zoutvlei (witnesses: P.[ieter)W.[atney] Cloete & S.P. Malherbe).
On 8 July 1907 the Widow Dawson was placed onder sensuur (under censure). The Notules (Minutes) inform us that her bastard child had been fathered by Michiel Dawson. Once again we are confronted with interference by the Church Council broeders at Philadelphia prying into the personal lives of one of the Brakfontein parishioners. A genealogical ‘reality test’ reveals that once again the council had difficulty in establishing correctly the identities of the people whose moral well-being it sought to control. The woman in question may have been Maria Catharina Rygaard, the widow of James Philip Marthinus Dawson. Looking at the baptismal register, however, the ‘problem’ seems to have been Gesina Maria Dawson – better known as Jenny Dawson. She was 2nd cousin to Chrissie Schietekat’s late father Gert Priem. It appears that 3 illegitimate children in a row had been tolerable but a 4th was the last straw. The putative father in all four entries is given as her kinsman Thomas Alexander Nagel.[83] Jenny was obliged to take her latest child elsewhere for baptism.
Jenny Dawson’s ‘Bastards’
(1) Thomas Alexander Nagel born in onecht Woodstock 23 April 1897; baptised DRC Cape Town 19 May 1897
(2) Gesina Maria Johanna Dawson born in onecht 26 March 1902; baptised DRC Philadelphia 25 May 1902
(3) Christina Johanna Dawson born in onecht 18 October 1905; baptised DRC Philadelphia 26 November 1905
(4) Michiel William Dawson born in onecht 22 December 1907; baptised DRC Cape Town 1 July 1908
On 10 December 1907 another wedding was solemnised in het Schoolgebouw te Brakfontein. The bride was none other than Jenny’s sister:
Hendrik Christiaan Otto Bodkin[84], 27, bachelor, houthakker at Hartebees Kraal married Ellen Catharina Dawson[85], 23, spinster at Blombos (witnesses: Christina J.[ohanna] Zagers[86] & W.E. Koster).
On 5 October 1908 the Church Council received feedback on the situation at Brakfontein:
… De Brakfontein School Com. maakte melding dat die School geopend was met een 13tal kinderen; dat Mej. Schietekat[87] als onderwijseres aangesteld was met salaris van £ 20 per jaar.
According to Ds. A.P. Smit:[88]
… Die enigste “kerkskool” in die gemeente in latere jare was ‘n sogenaamde “armen school” wat die kerkraad in 1908 op Brakfontein gestig het, waar die onderwys “vry aan die minderbevoorregte Duine-kinders” gegee is. Toe die getalle hier later afgeneem het, was die kerkraad verplig om dit weer te sluit…
On 15 May 1911 Nicolaas Schietekat finally arrived at an agreement with the church council. Schietekat was to maintain the Kerkgebouw te Brakfontein on condition that his kerkbank would be gratis. Presumably this would have been his kerkbank at the church in Philadelphia. By 1917 the Schietekats were no longer at Brakfontein. They had already moved to Camp Road, Maitland where Chrissie Schietekat (née Priem) died (18 December 1917).
On 5 July 1921 the Church Council noted that £ 15 had been spent on renovations for the kerkgebouw te Brakfontein. On 9 January 1922 the previous decision to get rid of the kerkgebouw te Brakfontein was overturned. The reason given was that the building was again in order.
The demise of the Brakfontein Gemeente
1938, the year of the Eeufees of the Great Trek, saw the demise of the Brakfontein Gemeente. It seems that the congregation had always been a precarious concession. Now its reason for continued existence appears to have been nullified by a rapidly changing political climate. Decisions by the church council to rearrange the historically entrenched or organically arranged modus vivendi of the folk – white, in-between, or ‘Coloured’ – are clearly evident in the DRC’s official history of the Philadelphia parish.
Ironically, perhaps, the name Philadelphia, means brotherly love. At a time when the politically, socially, culturally and economically marginalised families of the Blaauw Berg dunes were being forced to seek greater anonymity in the industrialised areas of the country or to stay behind as so-called Coloured folk, the Church authorities appear to have been unable to see their way to support their brethren on the dunes.
In the firing line … What happened to the Duinemense? ‘Trying for White’ … or …‘Trying for Black’ …
Identifying the latter-day descendants of these duinemense at the Blew Berg has proved to be no easy task. After the 2nd Anglo-Boer War most of the old families appear to have left the area. Their names are no longer to be found in the church records at Philadelphia, let alone the telephone directory. Here and there the names Schietekat and Stoffberg can still be found and even associated with ancestral farms. Anybody acquainted with the area will know, however, that such tradition is unlikely to survive much longer.The greater majority of the old families, however, have disappeared.
Or have they?
To this day, for example, the family names Loock and Verwey – former Brakfontein parishioners – have survived in Mamre.[89] Documentary evidence supports the conclusion that not just the names have survived but that also members of the original families associated for generations with the farms mentioned above, are still living in the same area as their ancestors.
… ARE you a native of South Africa? – Yes
Do you belong to the Hottentots? – Yes …
Will you give the Committee a little outline of your life; where did you spend your early years?
– We lived in the mountains till the missionaries … came amongst us, then I came amongst human beings …
– Andrew Stoffel giving evidence before The Select Committee On Aborigines (British Settlements)
Not all roads lead to Mamre … Wit Zand revisited …
27 June 1836
Recent studies by Helen Ludlow and Kerry Ward have concentrated on the neglected history of colonial / apartheid-disadvantaged coloured folk in the same area. These studies, however, ignore the confluence of genealogical, racial, cultural, social and economic complexities that make up the peopling of the area achter de Blaauwberg. Not all the people of Wittezand – the farm adjoining Brakfontein – went to Mamre or ended up being classified Coloured by the church and state authorities.
Kerry Ward states, for example, that:
… Not all ex-slaves sought entry into the missions: many moved to Cape Town or rural villages, or attempted to squat on government land. There was one group of squatters on the farm Wittezand who survived by burning and selling charcoal. It is not clear whether anyone from these squatter communities moved to Groenekloof after emancipation, although links with the mission were established at the time. The missionaries at Groenekloof started an out-station at Wittezand in 1839 …
According to Kerry Ward, one Thys Loock, born in 1918 on Wittezand, recalls that his father, Mathewis, and his grandfather, Samuel Loock, were born on the same farm. The family left Wittezand in the 1930s due to the declining use of charcoal as a fuel source in Cape Town and later also in the country towns. In a personal interview Thys Loock is quoted as saying that:
… All the time they lived there, first, and then when they were old they moved from there to Pella [Mamre out-station] …They were the first people, I think, in South Africa that delivered [charcoal] now …
The West Coast has a long history of lime kilns, the practice which was probably established by Floris Brand (born 1744)[90] at Skulpbaai (near the present-day Bloubergstrand) and his cousin, the gallant and whaler Christiaan Pieter Brand (born 1734)[91] at Melkbosch (the present-day Melkbosstrand). Their mutual grandfather Robbert Robbertsz: Brand hailed originally from Christiania (the present-day Oslo).[92]
The mission station at Pella is situated on land that was originally granted and farmed by Widow Priem’s father, Jacob Ausserhoffer, and where Widow Priem was born and raised. The farm was known at that time as Kop van Groenrivier. Significantly, the Pella Mission station also included adjacent land on the slopes of the Katzenberg that was once the farm Geelbosch Fontein and Kraal. We have already encountered members of this family worshipping at Brakfontein. It is no coincidence that the farm had been granted originally to what appear to be the very ancestors of the above-named members of the Loock family mentioned by Kerry Ward!
The Opgaaf Rol for 1819 even enumerates one Carel Hendrik Luck (presumably a son of Eva Johanna Fritz) as being part of the household (ie a knecht or labourer or bywoner) of Widow Priem’s father, Jacob Ausserhoffer, at Kop van Groenrivier.[93] On 6 September 1883 one Sophia Dorothea Lucke was baptised as an adult and confirmed by Ds. Strasheim. The ceremony conceivably took place at Brakfontein.[94]
The son of yet another knecht of Jacob Ausserhoffer, Christoffel Coenraad Borsteed (alias Borstick) died at his house at Milnerton on 17 May 1910 (aged 82 years and 8 months).[95] His occupation, significantly, was that of timmerman and later as a labourer in Lime Kilns. He was born at Groenekloof, Mamre in 1828 the son of Christoffel Coenraad Borsteedt[96] and Hendrina Dorothea Jacobse/n, the widow of James Fraser from New York in North America. Like so many other parishioners of Brakfontein, he was only baptised as a bejaarde person (adult). This was at Cape Town on 29 September 1843. His Fraser half-siblings married into the Rygaard and Zager families who descended from a nooi Loock.
The Loock family appears to descend from the Dane[97] Neels Hendrik Luck who married on 18 September 1803 Eva Johanna Fritz. On 20 March 1805 the freed slave Floris Johannes Fritz and his wife the Hottentot Maria[98] were granted the farm Geelbosch Fontein & Kraal, also known as Katzenberg. [99] The couple, living at Blaauweberg, married that same year on 16 June 1805.[100] It was their eldest daughter Eva Johanna Fritz who mothered a considerable Loock (also found as Loek, Luk & Luke) progeny in the dunes.
Descendants of Floris Johannes Fritz & Maria Fritz of Geelbosch Fontein & Kraal
b1 Eva Johanna Fritz married 1803 Neels Hendrik Luck from Denmark
c1 Carel Hendrik Luck
c2 Maria Magdalena Siena Luck married (1) 25 April 1825 the Bastaard Hottentot Salomo(n) Rygaard (baptised DRC Zwartland 2 December 1822); married (2) Jozef Zagers
d1 Hendrik Michiel Frederik Rygaard (born 1820)
d2 Eva Johanna Rygaard (born 1823) married Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr. (he remarried Sophia Jacoba Priem, née Hayes)
d3 Christina Maria Rygaard (adult baptism 1847) married Jan Georg(e) van Graan, wid/o Johanna Jacoba Dorothea Everts
d4 Johan Salomon Rygaard (alias Weingaard) (born 1827, adult baptism 1849) married (1) Catharina Maria Fraser; married (2) Catharina Rachellina Nagel
d5 Florentina Magdalena Zagers (adult baptism St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Cape Town 1853)
d6 Catharina Elizabeth Zagers (adult baptism DRC Darling 1854) married Michiel Johannes Everts
d7 Sara Johanna Saggers (adult baptism DRC Darling 1856) married James Philip Marthinus Fraser
d8 Jozef Zacharias Zaagers (adult baptism DRC Cape Town 1858) married Gesina Elisabeth Johanna Fraser
d9 Adam Cornelis Zaggers (adult baptism DRC Cape Town 1863)
c3 Cornelis Johannes Wilhelmus Luck (born 1808)
c4 Johannes Marthinus Luck (born 1810)
c5 Eva Johanna Luck (born 1811) married 1830 William Brook
c6 Florentina Magdalena Luck married (1) 1824 John Palmer; married (2) 1834 Joseph Brook
c7 Christina Maria Luck (born 1812)
c8 Floris Adriaan Luck married 1826 Maria Elisabeth Bester
b2 Carel Joseph Fritz (born 1778; adult baptism 1812) married Johanna Wilhelmina Hansen
c1 Johanna Wilhelmina Frits married her 1st cousin Ernst Lodewyk Guldenzoph
b3 Robert J. Fritz married Wilhelmina Johanna Sambaba (5 sons & 3 daughters in 1819)
b4 Sara Maria Fritz married (1) Marthinus Johannes Schreuder; married (2) 1814 Robert Cowdrey from Lingfield, England 1786
b5 Florentina Elizabeth Fritz (1786-1818 / 1819) married John Frederick Smith from Edinburgh, Scotland (he remarried Maria Johanna Jacobs) – they farmed at Uitkyk / Drooge Plaat
c1 Christina Maria Smith
c2 James Smith (born 1812) married 1835 Catherine Hayes from Cork, Ireland
c3 Sara Elisabeth Smith
c4 Elisabeth Johanna Smith
c5 Johannes Floris Smith (born 1818)
b6 Christina Maria Fritz (born 1789) married Johann Ernst Guldenzoph from Ulm in Germany
c1 Maria Florentina Guldenzoph (born 1819) married J.H.J. Muller
c2 Sara Johanna Guldenzoph (born 1820) married J.M. Muller
c3 Ernst Lodewyk Guldenzoph married his 1st cousin Johanna Wilhelmina Frits
Perhaps even more significant is the fact that the Gouverments Plaats Wit(te) Zand and other neighbouring farms were always a sanctuary for generations of the fuel-gathering Dune folk – not necessarily ex-slaves at all – who worshipped at Brakfontein and who did not all beat a retreat into the mission station at Mamre. The writer’s own maternal 3rd great-grandfather Jan Hendrik Priem – father-in-law to Brakfontein’s Widow Priem – eked out an existence at Wittezand and neighbouring farms for most of his life. In 1837 he was enumerated in the Opgaaf as poor being unable to pay his capitation tax of 6 shillings. Only the first 5 of his 10 children were baptised as children; the last 5 were all baptised as adults like so many of their other contemporaries living in the dunes. Significantly, although it was illegal for a man to marry his deceased brother’s wife, the Groote Kerk in Cape Town, preferred to turn a blind eye when marrying Petronella Barendina Schietekat (1829- ante 1914)[101] to Franciscus Priem, younger brother to her deceased husband, Hendrik Andries Priem. Both marriages, when solemnised and legalised, were recorded as initially being de facto.
Children of Jan Hendrik Priem (born 1800) & Hermina Johanna Verwey (born 1802)
- Johan Hendrik Priem (1822-1823)
- Gerhardus Priem (1823-1885) married Anna Wilhelmina Ausserhoffer (1817-1893)
- Jan Johannes Priem (born 1825) married (de facto ) Sophia Jacoba Hayes daughter of Michael Hayes from Cork, Ireland & Catharina Maria Ausserhoffer – she remarried her late husband’s uncle, Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr.
- Hendrik Andries Priem (born 1826) married Petronella Barendina Schietekat – she married (2) her brother-in-law Francisus Priem
- Christiaan Pieter Priem (born 1828) married Maria Johanna van Rhyn
- Daniel Tobias Priem (born 1830) married (1) his 1st cousin Maria Magdalena Verwey daughter of Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr. & Eva Johanna Rygaard; married (2) Catharina Wilhelmina Cerff / Seraph
- Christina Johanna Priem (born c. 1832)
- Franciscus Priem (1834-1906) married his sister-in-law Petronella Barendina Schietekat, wid/o Hendrik Andries Priem
- Neeltje Catharina Priem (born c. 1836) married her 1st cousin Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Jr. son of Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr. & Eva Johanna Rygaard
- Thomas Andries Priem (born c. 1838) married his 1st cousin Catharina Elisabeth Verwey daughter of Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr. & Eva Johanna Rygaard
The father of the wife of Jan Hendrik Priem, my 4th great-grandfather Gerhardus Verwey (1767-1843)[102], also had an itinerant association with Wit Zand and adjoining farms. He had married his 1st cousin, Christina Johanna Brand (born 1776), the daughter of the above-mentioned whaler and charcoal burner, Christiaan Pieter Brand at Melkbosch.
Gerhardus VERWEY (1767-1843) & Christina Johanna BRAND (born 1776)
places of residence as enumerated in the Opgaaf Rollen
- 1810 (J43) Haartebeest Kraal (door J.[ohannes] P.[aulus] Eksteen aan hom vergunt – leeningplaats) Ander Plaatzen: Laatste Stuiwer
- 1813 (J45) Brakfontein & Klein Springfontein [Klein Springfontein belonged to J.[ohann] F. [riedrich] Veyll]
- 1815 (J46) woonachtig aan de Haartebeest Kraal
- 1817 (J47) aan de Hartebeest Craal woonachtig
- 1818 (J48) Gravengift, Groenekloof [farm of W.[illem] Ferdinand] [van] R.[eede] van Outshoorn Jr.] – adjacent to Laatste Stuiver, Wit Zand & Melk Post
- 1819 (J49) Gravengift [owned by Nicolaas van Wielligh]
- 1820 (J50) Gravengift
- 1822 (J53) Op de Plaats Witzand woonachtig [together with Jan Hendrik Priem & Hermina Johanna Verwey) [Witzand, together with Melk Post & Hartebeeste Kraal were then Gouvernements Plaatsen under control of C.[hristiaan] M.[arthinus] Stoffberg
- 1823 (J54) ) op de plaats Witzand woonachtig [also Jan Nagel, Justus Keer Jr.]
- 1824 (J55) op de plaats Witzand woonachtig [belonging to C.[hristiaan] M.[arthinus] Stoffberg
- 1825 (J56) residing on a piece of land belonging to D. van Reenen at Blewberg [ie Brakfontein & Springfontein]
Two of Gerhardus Verwey’s daughters Crisje and Mietje had children fathered by the same man James Philippus Marthinus Fraser (born 1808)[103]. The extended family all resided at Witzand. His 1st wife was Christina Johanna Verwey[104] died intestate at the Place of J:[aco]b v[an], Reenen J.son Witzand, Cape District on 15 August 1836 (aged 28 years and 12 days) leaving 4 minor children, 8 head of cattle, 1 old wagon and indebted to the sum of Rds 250. Thereafter he turned to his deceased wife’s elder sister Maria Elisabeth Verwey[105] for de facto conjugal support.
Once again we see a pattern of children mostly baptised as adults at the Groote Kerk in Cape Town. One wonders whether the church ever considered allowing their illegal union and to marry them as was the case with the double Mrs Priem: Petronella Barendina Schietekat?
We do know, however, that the church was somewhat accommodating. The church at Philadelphia eventually confirmed (27 March 1882) Mietje Verwey at the ripe age of 76 years. We have already seen that the year 1882 was a ritually rich year at Brakfontein and Mietje could finally step out of the shadows with respectability somewhat regained. Three of her children and step-children married children of Maria Magdalena Siena Loock who had had children by both the Bastaard Hottentot Salomon Rygaard and Jozef Zagers respectively. Her descendants all lived at Bloemboschfontein.
Children of James Philippus Marthinus Fraser & Crisje Verwey
(1) Hendrina Dorothea Fraser (born 1828) married Daniel Christiaan Roodt
(2) Christina Johanna Fraser (born 1832) married Nicolaas Hendrikus Schietekat son of Jan Maurits Schietekat & Petronella Barendina Bruyns
(3) James Philip Marthinus Fraser (born c. 1834) married Sara Johanna Zagers daughter of Jozef Zagers & Maria Magdalena Siena Loock, wid. of the Bastaard Hottentot Salomon Rygaard
(4) Gesina Geesje) Elisabeth Johanna Fraser (born c. 1836) married Jozef Zacharias Zagers son of Jozef Zagers & Maria Magdalena Siena Loock, wid. of the Bastaard Hottentot Salomon Rygaard – famer at Bloembosch Fontein
Children of James Philippus Marthinus Fraser & Mietje Verwey
(1) Catharina Maria Fraser (born c. 1832) married Johan Salomon Weingaart, alias Rygaard son of the Bastaard Hottentot Salomon Rygaard & Maria Magdalena Siena Loock
(2) Daniel Alexander Fraser (born c. 1838) married Elizabeth Maria Nagel daughter of Christiaan Marthinus Nagel & Catharina Johanna Verwey
Gerhardus Verwey’s son, Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr., it should be noted – before he married the censured Sophia Jacoba Hayes – was married to Eva Johanna Rygaard, the daughter of Maria Magdalena Siena Luke, alias Loock and the baptised Bastaard Hottentot Salomon Rygaard (alias Rykhaard) [106]. The family all lived at Brakfontein. Three of their children married 3 of the children of his sister Hermina Johanna Verwey – the latter being mother-in-law to our Widow Priem.
Children of Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr. (born 1815) by his 1st wife, Eva Johanna Rygaard (born 1823):
(1) Gert Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey (born 1839) married his 1st cousin Neeltje Catharina Priem
(2) Maria Magdalena Verwey (born 1842) married her 1st cousin Daniel Tobias Priem
(3) Christina Johanna Verwey (1846-1901) married Brakfontein 24 April 1882 Michael William Dawson from Ireland
(4) Christiaan Pieter Verwey (born 1848)
(5) Catharina Elisabeth Verwey (born 1850) married Philadelphia her 1st cousin Thomas Andries Priem
- Eva Johanna Verwey (born 1852)married Michiel Johannes van Graan
- Daniel Tobias Verwey (born c. 1856) married Johanna Susanna van Graan
Children of Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr. (born 1815) by his 2nd wife, Sophia Jacoba Hayes (born 1826), wid. Jan Johannes Priem
(8) Maria Elizabeth Verwey (born 1876) married (1) Brakfontein 25 July 1899 Christoffel Johannes Rygaard
(9) Christiaan Pieter Michiel Verwey (born 1879) married Johanna Jacoba Jacobs
Also living at Wittezand was Justus Nicolaas Keer Jr. and his family. The son of a German immigrant, Justus Nicolaas Keer from Eisenach in Saxony, his houvrou was Betje – baptised Elisabeth Geertruida Priem (born 1798)[107] – paternal aunt to Widow Priem’s husband. Although both were of European extraction exclusively, their Kear / Keer / Kehr / Keur / Kuir-surname-bearing-descendants all came to be classified Coloured.[108]
Another important resident at Wittezand was the charcoal burner Jan Nagel (1764-1842) [109] and his numerous mixed offspring. In 1819 already, he is enumerated as being resident at the 3 Gouvernements Plaatsen managed by C.[hristiaan]M.[arthinus] Stoffberg: Wittesand, Hartebeest Kraal [the present-day Atlantis] and Melkpost [granted to my 4th great-grandfather the Bastaard Hottentot Frans Jacobs in 1837].
Jan Nagel did the respectable thing – eventually. On 23 March 1840 he presented himself and his very much younger houvrou – 31 years his junior – Elizabeth Catharina Damons, alias Elizabeth van de Kaap (born 1795),at the Groote Kerk in Cape Town – together with their brood of 15 children. He requested to have their union legalised and blessed by the church. His common law wife had already been baptised in the same church on 11 August 1833. Their sworn statement reads as follows:
… Wy, Jan Nagel en Elizabeth Catharina Damons, verklaren by dese plegtig, opregt en waarlyk, dat wy, Jan Nagel en Elizabeth Catharina Damons, op den 30sten dag van Maart, in het jaar 1809, of omtrent, in de Kaapsche Duinen, onderling met elkander getrouwd zyn, en dat wy in dit huwelyk verwekt hebben, vyftien kinderen, en niet meer, namelyk:
Hendrik geboren den 1 January 1810
Jan geboren den 25 Juny 1811
Catharina Johanna geboren den 3 July 1813
Elizabeth Maria geboren den 30 October 1815
Johanna geboren den 15 November 1817 overleden den 1 December 1817
Christoffel geboren den 12 Mei 1819
Vrouwtje Nagel geboren den 15 December 1820
Christiaan geboren den 3 Juny 1822
Fredrik geboren den 5 September 1824
Sara geboren den 12 September 1826
Pieter geboren den 4 Augustus 1828
Constant geboren den 2 Maart 1830
Adolph geboren den 12 Mei 1831
Engela geboren den 30 Augustus 1833
Johannes geboren den 11 July 1837
[signed] Jan Nagel
[signed] Elisabeth Catharina Damans [sic]
Als getuigen
[signed] A. Faure
[signed] H. Gie
[signed] G.W. de Wet
Kaapstad den 23 Maart 1840 …
It seems unlikely that the Nagels were ever regarded as squatters – unless we equate the term with bywoners. Just recently the squatter camp at Witsand has come into the news. We read on the front page of Die Burger (17 April 1999) that:
… ‘n Vrou wat geleef het vir die natuur, die plaas en haar opteldiere, is gister in die motorhuis op hul kleinhoewe tussen Atlantis en Philadelphia deur vermoedelik ‘n gewese werknemer en ‘n meerloper doodgeskiet …Vroeër gister het die Polisie gesoek na ‘n 21-jarige man van die Witsand plakkerskamp en ‘n vriend wat op die hoewe Klein Begin opgedaag het en met mev. Opitz se motor daar weg is…
Voorentoe-ondertrouery in the Dunes …
The high degree of intermarriage amongst the original documentable families at the Blue Berg is possibly explained more fully in terms of the following factors:
- the general poverty of the area and its contained population;
- the consolidation of the amassed landed wealth for better economic and social survival, respectability and – hopefully – advancement;
- some families had a kick-start in terms of holding official positions (eg the Verwey family, related members of whom were veldcornets)
- (Bastaard) Hottentots and ex-slaves who were granted land (eg the ex-slave Floris Johannes Fritz and his wife the Hottentot Maria Vries at Geelbosch Fontein & Kraal and Katzenberg and the Bastaard Hottentots Frans Jacobs and his wife Catharina Alexander Bloembosch Fontein and Melk Post) could consolidate their position and even provide through their daughters (and even sons) a lifeline-to-respectability for impoverished white, settler and European families.
A rudimentary micro-historical investigation of the area and its families reveals a hypothesis difficult to ignore: Richer families tended to intermarry to a great extent, eg the Stoffbergs, Schietekats and the Vinks. These were assured classification as Europeans – although never born in Europe – by 1910. The Dutch Reformed Church introduced race classification in 1910 when recording marriages. Poorer families, eg the Priems and the Verweys, also tended to intermarry to a great extent. These were not necessarily spared from becoming known or classified as Coloured. Survival determined intermarriage in either instance. The same surnames can be found amongst both the richer and poorer families. The ‘disappearance’ of the Duinemense appears to have been twofold:
(1) Poorer and darker folk remained behind and can still be found in surrounding places such as Mamre or moved to the surrounding urban areas of greater Cape Town formally restricted to Coloureds;
(2) Less poorer and less darker folk moved to Salt River and Woodstock and other working class (initially) predominantly white areas following post -Anglo-Boer War devastation and industrialisation.
Both groups were related by blood. Studying both groups, separately, perpetuates a distorted historical reality. Oral history, we should bear in mind, can be more meaningful when checked against the written record.
POSTSCRIPT: WIDOW PRIEM – A REAPPRAISAL
… Dutch practice of piety in the early 18th century consisted of several ways to salvation whose common denominator was a religion of the heart coupled with the practice of a morally responsible Christianity in a parish with no identifiable territorial boundary …
– Nicholas Hope, “German and Scandinavian Protestantism 1700-1918”
We may never know what prompted Anna Wilhelmina Priem (née Ausserhoffer) – the widow Priem – and her husband to provide a religious shelter to the Dune folk on the fringes of Cape Town’s northern periphery. Was it piety – a continuation of the fashionable missionary zeal and urge to evangelise the unenlightened?[110] Does C. Louis Leipoldt’s references to a widow Priem in his novel Stormwrack and other writings provide valuable clues to these questions?
Leipoldt was of recent German heritage. More importantly, his mother was a great-granddaughter of Freiherr Friedrich von Buchenröder von Buchenradt, the eccentric German baron and Dutch Major who was declared persona non grata by the Cape’s Batavian republican government after an abortive immigration scheme. It was Widow Priem’s vintner father, Jacob Ausserhoffer, who was one of the immigrant artisans brought out by Von Buchenröder.[111] Leipoldt was also born into an itinerant missionary family.[112]
Fleshing out Widow Priem’s maternal ancestry, we see that her mother’s family were people of note: extremely wealthy and actively involved in missionary work.
Widow Priem’s mother Sophia Ausserhoffer, née Zeeman (1779-1844) was the eldest of the two daughters of Petrus Zeeman (born 1754) and Maria Elisabeth van der Poel (1739-1805). Her maternal aunt Catharina Maria Zeeman (born 1783) was married to Hendrik Josias Blankenburg.
As the Weduwe Blanckenburg, she has left a most valuable cultural historical legacy to the material culture of the Boer / Cape Dutch / Afrikaner in the form of her existent Keuke boek [113] and her preserved geboorteknipsel [114]. These two sisters were the granddaughters of Jonas van der Poel (1695-1756) and Sophia Myburgh (1702-1775).
Significantly, it was at the house of Widow Priem’s grandmother’s brother, Albert van der Poel (1724-1806)[115] that the Zuid -Africaansche Genootschap – later known as the SA Sendinggenootskap – was founded on 22 April 1799. The purpose of the society was the uitbreiding van die Christus-ryk “onder de onverligten in deze colonie en heydenen”.[116]
The legacy of her great-uncle Cornelis van der Poel (1734-1804)[117] and his descendants is omnipresent throughout Cape Town to this day. Burger-councillor and chairman of the first Cape Raad der Gemeente, Cornelis van der Poel was an influential man. His advocate son, Jonas van der Poel (1771-1812) died one of the wealthiest men at the Cape[118]. Through his heirs, his sister Anna Margaretha (the widow Willem Hiddingh the elder[119]) and her children (Susanna Cornelia, wife of W.F. Hertzog[120], Willem Hiddingh[121], Cornelis Hiddingh, Petrus Hofstede Hiddingh & Sophia Barbara Elisabeth Jamison[122]), their many bequests helped to initiate and consolidate intellectual and academic institutions in the Cape Colony and beyond. Family legend has it that the Van der Poel family were originally Van der Boel – a bastard offshoot of the royal, princely and stadholder House of Nassau, being descendants of a concubine or boel of one of the princes of Orange.
Significantly too, four of Widow Priem’s grandmother’s brothers all married members of the Myburgh family of which their own mother was a member.[123] Widow Priem’s great-grandmother, Sophia Myburgh (1702-1775), was the daughter of Sophia Zank / Sank, a widow from Cologne who married Jan Lambertsz: Mijburgh[124] on 15 March 1699 the son of a Norwegian immigrant from Stavern, Lambert Lambertsz, and a Dutch mother from Pumerend, Aeltje Alberts:[125]. A matriarchal bias enables us to conclude that perhaps Sophia Zank herself played a pivotal part in the religious shaping of her latter-day progeny? Her story has yet to be told.
Monopolising the avenues to Heaven …
… I am a Boor’s child, although I had to sit behind the chairs and stools, as my mother was a Hottentot woman, and therefore I consider myself a Hottentot also. Men say I have Christian blood in me, but I know only of one blood that God has made. The so-called Christeman steals the name …
– Esau Prins, speaking at a meeting at Philipton on the Kat River in 1834 [Elbourne, “To Colonise the Mind,” 248]
The Brakfontein Gemeente cannot be said to have been an extension of any missionary work aimed exclusively at the unenlightened (read darker folk). The parish was merely tolerated as a deviant offshoot of the established parish at Philadelphia. The Dune people or their immediate protectors never had any direct representation on the Church Council.[126] Missionary work in the area appears to have been monopolised by the Moravian missionaries at Mamre (Groenekloof) since 1808, who even eventually came to purchase and consolidate the farms once owned by Widow Priem’s father, Jacob Ausserhoffer. Already as early as 1839 they had an outpost at Wit Zand. It was only as late as 1938, the year of the symbolic Ossewatrek, that the Dutch Reformed Church at Philadelphia was able to realise the building of a separate sendingkerk competing for the attention of people from Mamre, Pella and Katzenberg. Prior to that separate services were held in the main church for the Kleurlingen.
A careful reading of Ds. A.P. Smit’s chapter on Sendingwerk in die Gemeente reveals less success in extending God’s kingdom amongst the nie-blankes than he would have us believe. Ds. Smit informs us that as oud-sendeling het ds. Botha se sielheil van die plaaslike Kleurlinge op sy hart gedra. Shortly after his arrival, he started giving services for the Kleurlinge (also termed de bruine menschen in the minutes) on Sunday evenings in the school lokaal. Ds. Botha also advocated separate registers for the nie-blankes, but Smit notes that nothing came of the decisions.
… Tot ‘n selfstandige sendinggemeente in eintlike sin het dit egter nooit gekom nie. Inteendeel die sogenaamde “sendinggemeente” het later in die praktyk feitlik opgehou om te bestaan.[127]
Not surprisingly, the decision to separate the nie-blankes from the blankes, was already formalised during the office (1884-1894) of Ds. Daniel Stephanus Botha (1852-1927).[128]
… De kerkraad geeft den leraar (ds. Botha) verlof eene zending gemeente uit de kleurlingen alhier te stichten, die wel onder het bestuur van den kerkeraad staan zal, doch in een andere gebouw zal aanbidden en nooit eenige aanspraak zal hebben op rechten van den blanke gemeente alhier. D.w.z. de leden der zending gemeente zullen niet hunne kerkelijke voorrechten tezamen met de blanken in het kerkgebouw mogen genieten en zullen niet aanspraak hebben op de kerkelijke eigendommen der moeder gemeente …
Significantly the belated registration of Widow Priem’s donation of land at Brakfontein to the church followed soon after the council’s decision of 7 January 1892. This was on 18 May 1892. Widow Priem died soon thereafter on 31 March 1893.
Whether Widow Priem ever took religion from the heart or practiced as a morally responsible Christianity, we do not know. Perhaps Widow Priem, by suffering the dune folk to come unto her, merely did what came naturally – that is, whatever the rest of her relatives were (seen to be) doing …
In doing so, she appears to have followed the maternal Dutch Reformed side of her family and not the Catholic (later Lutheran) German side of her father’s family. Had she hoped to ensure that the church at Philadelphia would always be there for her own folk living in the dunes?
The writer – great-great grandson of Anna Wilhelmina Ausserhoffer – remains intrigued by the fact that when confronted by Widow Priem’s existence – no members of his family, immediate or extended, have any memory or recollection whatsoever of her and her alternative congregation at Brakfontein.
Is this not in keeping with the denial that stems from the imposition and tyranny of orthodoxy and convention?
Nevertheless, Brakfontein, when graced by Widow Priem’s shadow in the lesser-consulted written record, can be said to have qualified as a parish with no identifiable territorial boundary …
PERSONAL COMMUNICATION:
- My late maternal grandfather: Jacob (Japie) Gerhardus Ausserhoffer Priem Jr. (1895-1976)
- the late Johanna (Jo / Joey) Isabella Kennedy (née Priem) (1905-1994)
- the late Sophia (Dolly) Jacoba Allen (née Priem) (1902-1985)
- the late Rosaleen Neela Reynierse for the photographs of her mother, Sophia Jacoba Jubelius, née Priem (1842-1921)
- the late Mrs Bessie Laing, née Vink (born 1908) &
- the late Jan Nicolaas Schietekat (born 1901) for the photograph of his paternal grandfather, Nicolaas Hendrikus Schietekat
PRIMARY SOURCES:
- DRC/A : Registers & Minutes of the Philadelphia Gemeente
- CA : MOOC, MOIB, J
- DO/CT: Cape Farm Register
SECONDARY SOURCES:
- Coetzee, Renata: The South African Culinary Tradition with 167 authentic recipes (C. Struik Publishers, Cape Town 1988).
- Dictionary of SA Biography (DSAB).
- Duminy, J.P.: Twilight over the Tygeberg (Dr J. F. Midgley, J.P., Kommetjie 1979).
- Fransen, Hans & Cook, Mary Alexander: The Old Buildings of the Cape (A.A. Balkema, Cape Town 1980).
- Freund, W.: Society and Government in Dutch South Africa: The Cape and the Batavians, 1803-6 (Yale University, Ph.D., 1971).
- Hoge, J.: Personalia of the Germans at the Cape 1652-1806.
- Heese, J.A. & Lombard, R.T.J.: South African Genealogies (HSRC, Pretoria 1986-1992)
- Heywood, Katherine: Cape Hills in Sunlight (Human & Rousseau, Cape Town 1964).
- Leibbrandt, H.C.V.: Requesten.
- Leipoldt, C. Louis: Stormwrack (David Philip, Cape Town 1980).
- Ludlow, Elizabeth Helen: Missions and Emancipation in the South Western Cape: A Case Study of Groenekloof (Mamre), 1838-1852 (Unpublished Masters Dissertation, UCT).
- Mossop, Dr. E.E.: The Journals of Brink And Rhenius (The Van Riebeeck Society, Cape Town 1947).
- Philip, Peter: British Residents at the Cape 1795-1819: Biographical records of 4 800 Pioneers (David Philip, Cape Town 1981).
- Pretorius, Celestine: Al Laggende en pratende: Kaapse vroue in die 17de en 18de eeu (Human & Rousseau, Cape Town 19980).
- Rosenthal, Eric: Cape Directory 1800 (C. Struik, Cape Town 1969).
- A.P. Smit M.A. V.D.M.: Eeufeesalbum van die Ned. Geref. Gemeente Philadelphia 1863-1963, Kerkraad van Philadelphia.
- Upham, Mansell G.: The Priems of Blaauw Berg: A Family Chronicle (unpublished).
- Upham, Mansell G.: ‘Jacob Ausserhoffer: A Von Buchenröder Immigrant – and his descendants in the male line’, Familia Quarterly Journal of the Genealogical Society of SA, 1987, vol. XXIV no. 2, pp. 42-46.
- Upham, Mansell G.: ‘Widow-wooing Wanning’, Familia, vol. XXIV, no. 2 of 1987, pp. 42-46.
- Upham, Mansell G.: ’Chronology of the Life of Christiaan Pieter Brand Sr of the Farm Melkbosch’, Capensis, no. 1 of 1998, pp. 14-19.
- De Villiers, C.C. & Pama, C.: Genealogies of Old South African Families (A.A. Balkema, Cape Town 1966).
- Worden, Nigel & Crais, Clifton (eds.): Breaking the Chains: Slavery and its Legacy in the Nineteenth-Century Cape Colony (Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg 1994).
END NOTES
[1] Deeds Office, Cape Town (DO/CT) Cape (Farm Register Vol. I 1-28 B.56A Brakkefontein No. 32 [Brakke Fontein]. The farm is easily confused with the farm Brakfontein (later known as Adderley) situated in the neighbouring Koeberg region between Dassenberg & Klein Paardeberg.
[2] Also Witte Zand & later Witsand.
[3] Also found as Blo(e)mboschfontein or simply Blombos(ch).
[4] Now Klein Driefontein.
[5] Now Driefontein.
[6] NowDonkergat.
[7] Now Brakkuil.
[8] Later De Vaatje, now Vaatjie.
[9] Later known as Klein(e) Spring Fountein.
[10] The writer suspects that members of the Priem family and related families are all buried there as these are not to be found at the cemetery in Philadelphia.
[11] These 3 photographs are listed in the Elliott Collection card index at the Cape Archives (CA) under Houses & Homesteads as Brakfontein E 553-555 incorrectly located, however, at Mooreesburg [sic], but correctly filed under Philadelphia. There is a farm Brakfontein near Mooreesburg which explains the confusion. Elliott also photographed the opstal of the adjacent farm Bloemboschfontein. These farms are not dealt with in Fransen, Hans & Cook, Mary Alexander, The Old Buildings of the Cape (A.A. Balkema, Cape Town 1980), although this publication does have entries (no photographs) for both the Brakkefontein near Mooreesburg & the Brakkefontein now known as Adderley.
[12] A.P. Smit, Koeberg se Eeufees 1863-1963: Eeufeesalbum van die Ned. Geref. Gemeente Philadelphia 1863-1963, Kerkraad van Philadelphia, p. 25.
[13] Title of a song once popularised by the singer and entertainer, Al Debbo.
[14] A.P. Smit, Koeberg se Eeufees 1863-1963, Chapter XII, ‘Sendingwerk in die Gemeente’, pp. 56-58 & Chapter XVII ‘Die Plaaslike Sending’, pp. 119-134.
[15] A.P. Smit, Koeberg se Eeufees 1863-1963, p. 124.
[16] Son of Gysbert Verwey & Hermina Booysen.
[17] Daughter of Christiaan Pieter Brand (1734-?) & Gesina Maria Verwey (1739-1812). See Capensis, no. 1 of 1998, pp. 15-16.
[18] Genealogies of these families, compiled by the writer since 1977, were given to the late Dr J.A. Heese for inclusion in his work South African Genealogies – some of which have been included in volumes 1-4.
[19] See eg Ludlow, Elizabeth Helen, Missions and Emancipation in the South Western Cape: A Case Study of Groenekloof (Mamre), 1838-1852 (Unpublished Masters Dissertation, UCT) & Ward, Kerry, ‘Links in the Chain: Community, Identity & Migration in Mamre 1838 to 1938’, featured as Chapter 12 in Worden, Nigel & Crais, Clifton (eds.), Breaking the Chains: Slavery and its Legacy in the Nineteenth-Century Cape Colony (Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg 1994).
[20] See Dr D. Sleigh, Die Buiteposte, pp. 483-519 for backgound on the Slagtersveld.
[21] CA: Brakke Fonteyn Weiliksens G.J. Visser (30.8.1709) RLR 1 p. 199, (29.4.1710) RLR 1 p. 227, (27.8.1710) RLR 1 p. 248, (25.2.1711) RLR 1 p. 271, (26.8.1711) RLR 1 p. 297, (26.2.1712) RLR 1 p. 329.
[22] Dr E.E. Mossop, The Journals of Brink and Rhenius, Van Riebeeck Society, Cape Town 1947), pp.70-1, 98, 119 & 122-3.
[23] In CA: MOOC 8/1 no. 46 (1699) she is referred to as Helena Reijnekes. Together with her husband, Willem ten Damme, they are mentioned as the guardians of Elizabeth & Maria, the children of Adriaan van Brakel. Willem ten Damme jonkman en chyrrergyn married at the Cape 19 July 1682 Helena Gulicks jongedochter.
[24] DSAB IV, pp. 644-645. Widow ten Damme was granted Agter Blauwberg in November 1730. Her son had already been granted the neighbouring farm Keert de Koe at Oliphants Kop in 1698.
[25] For a biographical sketch, see DSAB II, pp. 267-269.
[26] Daughter of Hendrik van Aarde & Susanna Mouton.
[27] Son of Dirk Kotze & Maria Magdalena Carstens. He is referred to as Jurgen Coetsee by Hop & Joris Coetsee by Theal.
[28] Dr E.E. Mossop, The Journals of Brink and Rhenius, Van Riebeeck Society, Cape Town 1947), p. 119.
[29] MOOC 7/35 (Testamenten), no. 24.
[30] Durr was married to Veyll’s sister, Maria Catharina Veyll, whose children were his heirs. See J. Hoge, Personalia of the Germans at the Cape 1652-1806, pp. 435 &80-81.
[31] CA: J 50 (1819). Dirk Gysbert van Reenen Gz. (baptised 2 September 1792) was the son of Gysbert van Reenen & Maria Johanna Smalberger. He was married to Anna Isabella / Elisabeth Vos.
[32] DO/CT: Donkergats Rivier Cape fol. 35/1; Are 548 morgen; Diagram no. 107/1827; Cape Quits vol. 418 dd. 15.1.1827 Whole 548 morgen grant to Dirk Gysbert Verwey. He was the son of Dirk Verwey & Susanna Francina van Aarde & stepson of J.J. Kotze.
[33] CA: J45 (Opgaafrol) (1813).
[34] CA: J 49, p. 40.
[35] Carel Frederik Hendrik Reichardt who married (10 March 1845) Lea Elisabeth Eyssen.
[36] Deeds Office, Cape Town (DO/CT): Cape Qts Vol. 12 Fol. 14 Whole H:.
[37] Andries Kirsten (baptised 25 October 1807), son of Petrus Kirsten & Maria Elizabeth Muller, who married 5 April 1831 Maria Catharina Kirsten (J.F-dg).
[38] Worth noting, however, is the fact that the family name Johannes is found to this day at Mamre. Members of the Rygaard family (a variation of Richert ?), prominent in the Brakfontein Gemeente, were of Bastaard Hottentot origin.
[39] DO/CT: Deed no. 443 dated 29.2.1884 whole 548 morgen sold by B.J. Schietekat to Jan Johannes Priem. The Cape Farm Register is not clear how Schietekat obtained the farm from the previous recorded owner & grantee, Dirk Gysbert Verwey.
[40] Deed no. 5 Portion 781 mgn 500 sq.r. See Folio 32/1/1 Remainder 2111 morgen [Portion 1 of Brakke Fontein no. 32].
[41] Deed no. 7 Remainder 2111 morgen A. Kirsten to Gerhardus Priem (half share) & Frans Finck [sic – Vink] (half share).
[42] Deed no. 5 Portion 781 mgn 500 sq.r. See Folio 32/1/1 Remainder 2111 morgen [Portion 1 of Brakke Fontein no. 32].
[43] Deed no. 150 Remainder 2111 morgen F. Finck [sic – Vink] to Gerhardus Priem.
[44] Now known as Bloubergsvlei.
[45] ie Lower Franconia.
[46] DO/CT: Portion 1 of Brakke Fontein no. 32 fol. 32/1/1 Dgm no. 242/1855 F. No 5 d/d 1/2/1855; Deed No 443 dated 20.2.1884 Whole 781 mgn 500 SR Barend Johannes Schietekat to Jan Johannes Priem.
[47] He was from Ireland. He was a metselaar at Zoutvallei and later a transport rider & woodcutter at Brakfontein where he died on 31 May 1904 aged 68 years & 5 months.
[48] Daughter of Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey & Eva Johanna Rygaard. She died at Klein Springfontein 23 January 1901 (aged 56 years & 5 months).
[49] Often found as Gert Hendrik Harders Verwey. Son of Gerhardus Verwey (born 8 April 1815) & Christina Johanna Brand. He was the widower of Eva Johanna Rygaard (daughter of the Bastaard Hottentot Solomon Rykhaard / Rygaard & Maria Magdalena Siena Luke).
[50] Born Hayes, she was the de facto wife (later widow?) of Gert Priem’s brother, Jan Johannes Priem. She features later in the article being the subject of censure by the Church Council.
[51] Son of Jan Baptist Gabriel Everts & Dorothea Christina Lautenbach.
[52] C. Louis Leipoldt, Stormwrack (David Philip, Cape Town 1980), pp. 46, 65 & 93.
[53] CA: DOC 4/1/197 no. 31 dated 5 October 1886 (Mortgage Bond dated 6 July 1886 & Power of Attorney dated 5 October 1886) & DOC 4/1/197 no. 32 (6 July 1886) – Act of Suretyship & Deed of Hypothecation.
[54] Son of Franciscus Vink from Brughes in Flanders & Gesina (Geesje) Maria Verwey he was born 24 July 1824 & baptised DRC Cape Town 30 January 1825. He started out as a wagonmaker. He married DRC Cape Town 12 July 1827 Elisabeth (Bettie) Jacoba Schietekat (1827-1878), daughter of Johan Mauritz Schietekat & Petronella Barendina Bruyns. They had 7 children. Their descendants farmed at Platterug (Durbanville) & Welvergenoegd (Koeberg).
[55] Deed No 31 Remainder 2111 morgen Estate of G. Priem to Anna Wilhelmina Priem.
[56] DRC/A: G46 1/1 Philadelphia Notule 1864-1898.
[57] DRC/A: G46 1/1 Philadelphia Notule 1864-1898. See also Gewone Vergadering 31 Maart 1890 & p. 484 of DRC/A: G46 1/2 Philadelphia Notule 1898-1924.
[58] 18 May 1892: Deed No. 2372 portion 156 SR 36 S.F., A.W. Priem to Church Wardens Dutch Reformed Church, Philadelphia (Folio 32/2/1 Remainder 2110 morgen 443 SR 108 SF).
[59] Sophia Jacoba Hayes born 29 March 1826, baptised Sophia Hayes St Mary’s (Catholic) Cathedral, Cape Town 12 March 1841; daughter of Michael Hayes from Cork, Ireland & Catharina Maria Ausserhoffer. She married (1) (de facto) Jan Johannes Priem (s/o Jan Hendrik Priem & Hermina Johanna Verwey) by whom she had 3 daughters (Helena Catharina Priem, Hermina Elisabeth Priem & Sophia Jacoba Priem); confirmed DRC Philadelphia 6 September 1883; married (2) in the voorkamer of Brakfontein 6 September 1883 her late husband’s maternal uncle, Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr. (s/o Gerhardus Verwey & Christina Johanna Brand & widower of Eva Johanna Rygaard) by whom she had 2 children (Maria Elizabeth Verwey & Christiaan Pieter Michiel Verwey).
[60] This appears to be Jan Christiaan Nagel, born 15 May 1847; baptised John Christian Nager [sic] St George’s (Anglican) Cathedral, Cape Town 20 July 1853. He was the illegitimate son of Christiaan Marthinus Nagel & Catharina Johanna Verwey. He was married to Agatha Gertruida Elisabeth Cabano (d/o Louis Cabano from Canada & Elizabeth Catharina Hendrina Smith).
[61] Christiaan Marthinus Nagel born 3 June 1822; baptised (adult) DRC Cape Town 11 October 1839; s/o Jan Nagel & Elizabeth Catharina Damons. He was a farmer at Melkbosch and married de facto Catharina Johanna Verwey (formerly de facto wife of Christiaan Marthinus Stoffberg).
[62] Elizabeth Maria Nagel born 23 August 1849; baptised Elizabetha Johanna Nager [sic] St George’s (Anglican) Cathedral, Cape Town 20 July 1853; confirmed DRC Phildalphia 6 September 1883 (aged 35 years); illegitimate daughter of Christiaan Marthinus Nagel & Catharina Johanna Verwey; married DRC Cape Town 22 March 1869 Daniel Alexander Fraser, a karrewyer at Blaauwberg (s/o James Philip Marthinus Fraser & Christina Johanna Verwey).
[63] They married DRC Cape Town (1 November 1853).
[64] They married DRC Cape Town (4 October 1858).
[65] 16 May 1894: Deed No. 2491 Remainder 2110 morgen 443 SR & 108 SF – A.W. Priem to Jacobus [sic] Gerhardus Priem.
[66] S/o Michael William Dawson (1836/7-1904) from Ireland & Christina Johanna Verwey (1845/6-1901).
[67] d/o Jan Johannes Salomo Rijgaard & Catharina Rachellina Nagel.
[68] For a biographical sketch on Dr John Edward Holloway, see DSAB, vol. 5, pp. 356-358.
[69] Personal correspondence: Letter: Dr J.E. Holloway to M.G. Upham (9 June 1976).
[70] CA: E556 & E604.
[71] Hans Fransen: Architectural beauty of the old Cape as seen by Arthur Elliott – photographs taken at the beginning of the 20th century (A.A. Balkema, Cape Town 1969), p. 127.
[72] Hans Fransen: A Cape Camera: The Architectural Beauty of the Old Cape – Photographs from the Arthur Elliott Collection in the Cape Archives (A.D. Donker & Jonathan Ball Publishers, Johannesburg 1993) p. 188, no. 242.
[73] For their descendants in the male line see the genealogy compiled by M.G. Upham in Heese/Lombard IV, pp. 27-30.
[74] Deed no. 2752 2110 morgen 443 SR 108 SF: J.G. Priem to Pieter Watney Cloete.
[75] CA: MOIB 2/2625, no. 212 (Insolvent Liquidation & Distribution Account: Jacob Gerhardus Aushoffer [sic – Ausserhoffer] Priem).
[76] CA: MOIB2/3192, no. 529.
[77] CA: MOIB 2/3309, no. 493.
[78] 10 May 1894: Whole 781 morgen 500 SR Portion 1 of Brakke Fontein (together with the whole of Donkergats Rivier) sold in thirds by Jan Johannes Priem to: Johannes Jacobus Kriegler (Deed no. 2365), Jacobus Hendricus Blankenberg (Deed No 2366) & William John Watney (Deed no. 2367).
[79] Daughter of Sophia Jacoba Priem, née Hayes & Gerhardus Hendrik Verwey Sr.. She remarried one Burns. Could she have been the Maria Verwey who married as a spinster [sic ?] at St Mary’s Anglican Church, Woodstock Thomas Bur(y)ns on 6 August 1904?
[80] S/o Jan Johannes Salomo Rygaard & Catharina Rachellina Nagel.
[81] Son of Michael/Michiel Johannes Bodkin & Louisa Carolina Hendrika Valentyn.
[82] Daughter of Petrus Jacobus van Graan & Helena Catharina Priem and granddaughter of Sophia Jacoba Verwey, formerly Priem, née Hayes & Jan Johannes Priem).
[83] Son of Petrus Johannes Nagel & Johanna Susanna Stoffberg.
[84] Son of Michael / Michiel Johannes Bodkin & Louisa Carolina Hendrika Valentyn.
[85] Daughter of Michael William Dawson (1836/7-1904) from Ireland & Christina Johanna Verwey (1845/6-1901).
[86] Christina Johanna Zagers (1887-1936), daughter of Jozef Zacharias Zagers (1863-1920) & Maria Magdalena Dawson (born 1865).
[87] Mej. Schietekat was Christina Johanna Priem, daughter of Gerhardus Priem & Anna Wilhelmina Ausserhoffer.
[88] A.P. Smit, Koeberg se Eeufees 1863-1963: Eeufeesalbum van die Ned. Geref. Gemeente Philadelphia 1863-1963, p. 61.
[89] Members of this family have been found, not only in the records of the Dutch Reformed Church at Philadelphia (Brakfontein Gemeente), but also at St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Cape Town and St Mary’s Anglican Church at Papendorp (the present-day Woodstock).
[90] Son of Floris Brand & Catharina Adriana van Hooven. He married Josina Jacoba Prins.
[91] Son of Johannes Brand & Christina de Vyf & grandson of den Vrij Chinees Abraham de Veij / de Vijf, (alias Inko den Chinees) & Maria Jacobs: from Batavia. I am indebted to Lorna Newcomb for authenticating C.P. Brand’s parentage.
[92] M.G. Upham: ’Chronology of the Life of Christiaan Pieter Brand Sr. of the Farm Melkbosch’, Capensis, no. 1 of 1998, pp. 14-19 & D.W. Krynauw & G.S.J. Möller: Blouberg: Ons beroemdste strand (Human & Rousseau, Cape Town 1994).
[93] CA: J 51 (Kaapsche District Opgaaf Rolle voor ‘t Jaar 1820).
[94] DRC/A: G46 2/1 (Philadelphia Lidmaat 1863-1939).
[95] Death Notice no. 1308 filed 19 May 1911.
[96] The name has been found variously as Borsteed, Bors(s)teek, Borstick, Borstad & Bosstad.
[97] There appear to be other seemingly Danish family names amongst these interrelated Dune folk, eg Hansen, Rygaard & Borsteed.
[98] According to her Death Notice, daughter of Floris & Eva Fritz, born at the Swartberg in 1763 & died at Simon’s Town on 27 September 1835 (aged 72).
[99] This land was later owned by descendants & extended family members of the (originally Bastaard Hottentot) Jacobs family and the (originally Scottish) Laing family – relations of Widow Priem’s daughter-in-law, born at Bloembosch Fontein & residing, once married, at the adjacent Brakfontein.
[100] CA: BR 69(A) (Batavian Republic Marriage Register), p. 4, no. 45.
[101] Daughter of Johan Mauritz Schietekat & Petronella Barendina Bruyns and sister inter alia to Barend Johannes Schietekat (1809-1898) who married Christina Maria Vink (1822-1909); Hendrik Johannes Schietekat (1819-1902) who married Gesina Maria Vink (1831-1898); Elizabeth Jacoba Schietekat (1827-1878) who married Pieter Joseph Vink (1824-1891) & Nicolaas Hendrikus Schietekat (born 1821) who married Christina Johanna Fraser (born 1832).
[102] He was married to his 1st cousin Christina Johanna Brand. See M.G. Upham: ’Chronology of the Life of Christiaan Pieter Brand Sr. of the Farm Melkbosch’, Capensis, no. 1 of 1998, pp. 15-16 for details of his children.
[103] Son of James Fraser from New York, North America & the Cape-born Hendrina Dorothea Jacobse/n.
[104] The baptismal register (DRC Cape Town 14 October 1808) states that she was born op de plaats genaamd Hartbeest Kraal on 3 August 1808. Her Death Notice (CA: MOOC 6/9/9 no. 1717, filed 22 September 1836), however, states that she was born at Dawn Fontein [sic – Duiyne Fontein].
[105] Born 11 April 1805 at Verlooren Valley according to her baptismal entry (DRC Cape Town 10 November 1805).
[106] Baptised as a bejaarde persoon at the DRC Zwartland (Malmesbury) on 2 December 1822.
[107] Daughter of Heinrich Prien (Hendrik Priem) from Schmalstede in Danish Holsten & Neeltje Catharina van den Berg.
[108] See the genealogy compiled by M.G. Upham in Heese / Lombard IV (South African Genealogies), pp. 226-7.
[109] He was the son of Hendrik Nagel from Amsterdam and Catharina Brand. His mother was a 1st cousin once removed to the wife (and 1st cousin!) of Gerhardus Verwey, Christina Johanna Brand.
[110] Piety has recently become a topical, revisited concept due to the prolific writings of Karel Schoeman. See his Dogter van Sion: Machtelt Smit en die 18de-eeuse samelewing aan die Kaap 1749-1799 (Human & Rousseau, Cape Town 1997); ‘Kaapse Stamouers: Die Voorsate van Machtelt Smith’, Kronos Journal of Cape History no. 23, UWC Institute for Historical Research, Bellville November 1996 & J.J. Kicherer en die Vroeë Sending, 1799-1806. See also the DSAB I, pp. 724-725 for the biographical sketch on Machtelt Schmidt (1749-1821).
[111] Mansell G. Upham, ‘Jacob Ausserhoffer: A Von Buchenröder Immigrant – and his descendants in the male line’, Familia Quarterly Journal of the Genealogical Society of SA, 1987, vol. XXIV no. 2, pp. 42-46.
[112] Leipoldt too has become topical of late. See J.C. Kannemeyer’s latest biography which covers in depth Leipoldt’s own missionary background.
[113] The preserved cookery book is inscribed as follows: Keuke boek van mijn De weduwe Blanckenburg geboren Zeeman Den 15 October 1819. See Renata Coetzee, The South African Culinary Tradition with 167 authentic recipes, pp. 106 & 109.
[114] Purportedly preserved and housed at the Tulbagh Museum but author could not trace it when visiting the Museum. See Celestine Pretorius, Al Laggende en pratende: Kaapse vroue in die 17de en 18de eeu, pp. 69-70. Dr Pretorius merely states, however, that … [a]l wat ons van haar weet, is dat sy die dogter was van Pieter Zeeman en Maria Elisabeth van der Poel … Ons weet ook dat sy in 1802 met Hendrik Josias Blankenburg getroud is …We also know that they had 3 daughters, 2 of whom attained adulthood and married.
[115] He was married to Hendrina Aletta Myburgh (1734-1812).
[116] ‘Twee honderd jaar van sending in SA gevier’, Rapport Metro (21 March 1999), p.3.
[117] DSAB IV, pp. 689-690.
[118] DSAB II, p. 778.
[119] DSAB II, pp. 299-300.
[120] DSAB I, p. 396-397.
[121] DSAB II, pp. 298-299.
[122] DSAB II, p. 335.
[123] Petrus van der Poel (1720-1788) married Elsje Myburgh (born 1721); Johannes van der Poel (1723-1768) married Cornelia Sophia Myburgh (1735-1769); Albertus van der Poel (1724-1806) married Hendrina Aletta Myburgh (1734-1812) & Cornelis van der Poel (1734-1804) married Elsie Elisabeth Myburgh (1751-1772).
[124] He appears to have been born in Buiksloot, near Amsterdam.
[125] She is also found in the records as Aeltje Hendricks.
[126] See the list of Kerksraadlede (1863-1963) featured in A.P. Smit’s Koeberg se Eeufees 1863-1963, pp. 166-168. The council was clearly dominated by richer, whiter & entrenched families on the farms immediately surrounding Philadelphia itself.
[127] A.P. Smit M.A. V.D.M.: Eeufeesalbum van die Ned. Geref. Gemeente Philadelphia 1863-1963, Kerkraad van Philadelphia, p. 56.
[128] DRC/A: Kerkraad Notule (Philadelphia), 7 January 1892.
Muatze 
Lose yourself in the twilight world of Brakfontein behind the Blaauw Berg where a well-connected and pietistic Widow Priem (described in Louis Leipoldt’s Boer War-novel “Stormwrack”) suffered her mixed-race-dune-folk-relations to come unto her in a separate-but-UNequal congregation. The dune folk are genealogised … itemised … identified … Why did the ‘broeders’ at the church at Philadelphia finally dispense with brotherly love and abandon their off-white brethren living in the dunes? Only some retreated into the Moravian mission station at Mamre. What happened to the rest? Why do (apologist?) historians of late look in isolation at the histories of those currently deemed to be ‘disadvantaged’? Why divorce such people from the more complex and organic mix that once were the folk living in the dunes? …
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