Driefontein Farm to Richmond

Driefontein Farm House

WHEN OFFICIAL PERMISSION to establish a kerkplaats in the district was granted in 1843, it was decided that Driefontein (Three Springs), the farm of PJ van der Merwe, would be a suitable site, as running through the farm was the Wilgersloot (Willow Creek) River - a tributary of the Ongers - with its reliable source of fresh water from the three springs that gave the farm its name.

The Ongers rises south of Richmond in one of the highest and coldest parts of the Karoo, its name being an adaptation of the Afrikaans word ongerus, which in English means ‘uneasy’. And particularly uneasy does its tributary, the Wilgersloot, sometimes become. Relatively dry during the winter months, with the onset of good summer rains it is very often transformed from a meandering stream into a raging torrent, as it hurtles through the old part of town. .

Early in 1844 the newly appointed governor of the Cape, Major-General Sir Peregrine Maitland, was approached for permission to name the village in his honour. He declined, suggesting instead that it be named for his father-in-law Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond, who had died exactly 25 years earlier whilst serving as governor of Upper Canada.

The Dutch Reformed Church congregation wasted little time in setting about their business and in October 1844 - two months prior to Maitland’s formal approval of the future town’s name – construction work on their church commenced. On 19 April 1845 the first plots were sold by public auction and the name officially recognised in October of that year, making Richmond only the second formal settlement to be established in the Upper Karoo.

Unlike most Karoo dorps, however, the village was laid out in quite irregular fashion, the original dwellings being on either side of Van der Merwe’s farmstead along a road that for a short distance hugged the south bank of the river. Halfway along this road, and at right angles to it, a second road – Kerk Street - led through a ford to the church, all of 350 metres away, whilst some 150 metres to the west of the church, completed in 1847, was the market square.

Richmond was at the time, an isolated little dorp in the middle of a vast and inhospitable region of the Karoo. It lay 135km southwest of Colesberg, 140km northwest of Graaff-Reinet and 200km northeast of Beaufort West; its closest neighbour being Victoria West, established just six months prior to it, 90km to the west. Thus in 1848 was the decision was made to create the magisterial district of Richmond; the first in the Upper Karoo. Municipal status, too, came quickly; this being attained in 1854.

Anglican Bishop of the Cape, Robert Gray, visited Richmond in April 1850 and had this to say of his experience there: “It was the first time that the prayers of the Church of England had ever been offered; the first time that an English Clergyman had ever set foot in it. Moreover, there is not now, nor has there ever been, I believe, a religious teacher of any English sect in the place. I was pained to find how little acquaintance the English seemed to have with the Liturgy; - none knelt, none even stood, - all sat motionless, even when singing the 100th Psalm … I left the place with very painful and melancholy feelings for Colesberg sleeping at Mr Ackerman’s, who has a property of 60,000 acres in the Karroo: I could not induce him to accept any payment either for myself or my horses”.

Members of Richmond’s Dutch Reformed Church congregation, one would imagine, were somewhat better versed in ecclesiastical procedures with the arrival in the early 1860s of their new minister, the Reverend Johannes Jacobus Kotze, for among those attending his induction service in March 1862 were the reverends JH Hofmeyr of Somerset East, Andrew Murray senior of Graaff-Reinet, and Thomas Francois Burgers of Hanover. Burgers held some pretty radical views for a man of his time, and Kotze would soon be called upon to still the waters of a very excited Hanover congregation of the church.

Another new arrival in Richmond at much the same time as Kotze’s was Thomas Philippus Theron, originally of Tulbagh. Obviously a very determined young man, he opened a smithy in the town and set about improving his education to the extent that in 1864 he became a teacher at the local school. Theron remained in Richmond until 1870 when he and his wife settled on a section of the farm Gemsbokfontein (Gemsbok Spring) known as De Put, where Theron began work as a private schoolmaster in the employ of the flamboyant Johannes Jacobus Frederick ‘Hans’ Britz. Theron’s wife died in 1872. Three years later he married Aletta A Blomerus and began farming. Convinced of the need to establish a church and trading centre for the community, Theron early in 1876 formed a committee to pursue the matter; then entered into negotiations with farmers for the purchase of suitable land, and in September 1876 the title deeds for two properties were drawn up. And thus did the village of Britstown come into being.

In 1879, after 17 years of service to the Richmond congregation, the Reverend Kotze was transferred to Cape Town, his replacement being Johannes Hermanus Michiel Kock, who for seven years had served the breakaway Kruisvallei congregation of Tulbagh. Kock wrote extensively, not only on religious matters, but on the travels of early explorers such as Le Vaillant, Barrow, Lichtenstein and Harris, and would serve the Richmond congregation until his death in his 90th year. He is buried in the church grounds.

Kock was succeeded by Adriaan Moorreess whose grandfather was the progenitor of the family in South Africa and had married Anna Barbara Smuts of Malmsbury. Before coming to Richmond, Adriaan Moorreess, too, married a Smuts from the district of Malmesbury, Maria Magdelena Smuts. Moorreess would remain in Richmond until 1890.

On 12 September 1882 a preliminary meeting of the Boeren Beschermings Vereeniging and the Afrikaner Bond took place in Cradock. This was followed up by a congress held in Richmond in May 1883, coordinated by Thomas Philippus Theron, the schoolteacher and founder of Britstown, and it was at this latter meeting that the Boeren Beschermings Vereeniging was merged into the Afrikaner Bond, with Theron as its first secretary. Theron remained as the Bond’s secretary until 1897, when he was elected chairman; a post he would retain until his death in October 1908.

In 1884 Theron was elected to represent Richmond in the Cape Legislative Assembly and in this office, too, he would remain for the rest of his days. The Afrikaner Bond played a significant role in Cape politics, and although very few of its members held office in the cabinets formed by the predominantly English-speaking politicians of the day, no ministry could survive without its support.

One young man who no doubt benefited from the reintroduction of Dutch in the Cape Parliament was Willem Jacobus Viljoen, born in the district of Richmond in 1869. After graduating from the South African College in Cape Town, Viljoen was in 1891 awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Leyden, where he wrote the preliminary examination for a doctorate in Dutch literature. In 1896 the University of Strasbourg awarded Viljoen a PhD magna cum laude for his thesis Beitrage zur Geshichte der Cap-Hollandischen Sprache, in which he defended the view that Afrikaans developed from the 17th century vernacular of North Holland. Although written in German, this was the first doctoral dissertation on Afrikaans.

In 1895, and at the age of 26, Viljoen was appointed professor of modern languages and history at Victoria College (later University of Stellenbosch), where he was one of the founders of the Zuid-Afrikaanse Onderwijzers-Unie (ZAOU). In spite of his interest in ‘Cape Dutch’, Viljoen was an outspoken critic of the early Afrikaans movement and advocated the retention of Dutch: he was convinced that the disappearance of Dutch would result in the adoption of English, because Afrikaans had not yet developed as a written language. Dutch, he argued, would soon be made more accessible to Afrikaners by the adoption of Kollewijn’s simplified spelling, and in 1905 – the year in which he became editor of the ZAOU’s mouthpiece, Die Unie - this form of spelling was indeed accepted by the Zuid-Afrikaanse Taalbond.

Born in Richmond in October 1885, meanwhile, was Percy Albert Wagner, the son of John Wagner, whose first South African ancestor had emigrated from London in 1805 as a bandmaster and surgeon to the Duke of York’s Regiment. The Wagners were of German origin and, because of the considerable musical talents of many of the regimental bandmaster’s descendants, it is believed that the South African branch of the family is related to the famous Richard Wagner. Percy Wagner’s mother, Bertha Hoffa, was the daughter of Moritz Hoffa, and Mathilde Lelienfield, both of German origin. Her brother was Albert Hoffa, born in Richmond in 1859. Educated in Germany, Hoffa went on to establish the first private orthopaedic unit in that country at Wurzburg, Bavaria before being appointed professor at Berlin University. A pioneer in modern orthopaedics, he was amongst the first to practitioners to use Swedish Massage Therapy in the treatment of patients.

On 15 December 1900, just two months after the commencement of the Anglo-Boer War, Justice JBM Hertzog and Commandant Pieter Hendrik Kritzinger, each with about 700 men, crossed the Orange River and entered the Cape Colony. Amongst those who followed them into the Cape were commandants Wynand Malan, JC Lotter and Willem D Fouche, and Captain Gideon Scheepers all of whom were subsequently very active in the Graaff-Reinet and surrounding districts.

Their orders were to disrupt the enemy lines of communication, to blow up railway lines wherever possible, to wreck trains, to encourage Cape Colonials to rebel and join the Boer cause, and last, but most significantly, to burn down the houses of those Dutch-speaking citizens who helped the enemy.

“Flag Hill” Vlagkop 1900

In pursuit of this objective, Malan entered the Upper Karoo, and on 25 February 1901 attempted to occupy Richmond but was repulsed. So he moved southeast where he joined up with Kritzinger, and together they on 21 June captured a British patrol at Waterkloof in the district of Somerset East killing nine, wounding twelve and taking 66 prisoners.

Leaving Kritzinger, Malan returned to the district of Richmond, where, on 25 June 1901, he again attacked the village, occupied at the time by a small British force. The attack lasted all of twelve hours, and had he not been ill-informed by his scouts Malan would undoubtedly have taken the town. Those imperial soldiers killed in action are buried in the town’s old Anglican cemetery, whilst the remains of the well-preserved fort, Vlagkop, built to defend the village may still be seen on private property.

“Flag Hill” Vlagkop 2012 Vegkop

In July 1904, two years after the conclusion of the war, another Wagner, Olaff Jacobus Marais Wagner, was born in Richmond to Abraham Oberholzer Wagner, a pianist and organist, and his wife Maria Agatha. Olaff Wagner would go on to become a well-known sociologist.

Olaff’s uncle, Percy Albert Wagner, had meanwhile, after matriculating at the South African College School in Cape Town, studied at both the Frieburg School of Mining and Economic Geology and the Rosenbusch Institute of Petrology and Mineral Deposits in Germany. On his return to South Africa Wagner rapidly established himself as the country’s leading economic geologist. Always consumed with a burning desire not only to do as much work as possible, but to do it superbly he overtaxed himself. Never physically strong, he literally worked himself to death. Only 44 at the time of his passing in November 1929, he had written a number of books and hundreds of papers on the various mineral deposits in southern Africa.

But there is a darker side to Richmond’s early history. Petrus Stephanus Francois Hauptfleisch was a veteran of the First World War, who in 1924 was living with his aged mother in Leep Street, Richmond. Hauptfleisch, you should know, was fond of his daily sundowners: too fond, in fact. So his mother, who also just happened to have £300 stashed away under her mattress, blacklisted him, and in so doing cut off his liquor supplies. This not only pissed Hauptfleisch off, it also made him very thirsty – for her money. So he throttled the old girl, placed the body on its side on a built-up hearth, sprinkled it with petrol and ignited the vapour with a match. Hauptfleisch, you see, intended in this way to suggest an accident. His mother, he claimed, had suffered a fatal heart attack, while cleaning the stove with petrol. Lividity patches on the back of the body, however, proved that Mrs Hauptfleisch could not have died in the position she was found. A post- mortem established beyond doubt that throttling was the cause of death, and thus was Hauptfleisch hanged on 23 December 1924.

RICHMOND TODAY Like so many Upper Karoo towns, the principal activities in the surrounding district revolve around sheep farming and hunting. Prior to the early 1980s, the N1 from Cape Town to Johannesburg ran through the centre of town. So it was that the town developed on either side of two parallel roads, each about a mile long, and numerous fine examples of Victorian and Edwardian Karoo architecture to this day line these roads, some of them heritage sites.

Richmond, in 2008, became South Africa’s first BookTown, and with eight buildings jam-packed with books covering every conceivable subject, the town hosts not only the annual Richmond Book Fair, but a number of other book-related fairs throughout the year.

Driefontein Farm - Manager’s Cottage

Museums, Cultural & Archaeological Sites Richmond Museum, 17 Loop Street, cnr Leep Street This lovely old building with raised stoop, recessed entrance and large sash windows was originally the town’s first school, built in 1863. It was here that, the following year, Thomas Philippus Theron – who would go on to found Britstown, become chairman of the Afrikaner Bond, and represent Richmond in the Cape Parliament – commenced his teaching career. By the early 1970s the building had fallen into disuse and was bought by the Saddle Horse Breeders Society of South Africa and converted into a museum. Here you’ll find possibly the finest assemblage of saddle horse artifacts in the country, household effects dating back to the mid-1800s, numerous photographs, and copies of the town’s first and only newspaper, started in the 1870s. Adjoining the museum is a hall built at the school’s inception as a dormitory for the children of the district’s poorer folk.

Monuments, Memorials & Cemeteries Anglo-Boer War Graves, Old Anglican Cemetery, Paul Street Across the road from the original and much larger Dutch Reformed Church Cemetery is this small and sadly neglected graveyard. Here lie the remains of the two members of the town guard and fourteen soldiers – four of them unknown – of the King’s Field Scouts and 4th North Stafford Regiment who died in the attack on Richmond on 25 June 1901. Alongside them is buried, ‘No. 4216 Pte. R. Osborne, 13th (Prince of Wales) Royal Lancers, who died of wounds received in action at Geelbeksfontein on Feb. 27th 1902’. Market Square Garden, Loop Street, cnr Mark Street Flanked by giant gum trees and opposite the municipal building with its impressive columned entrance and beautifully carved door, is the town’s original market square, now regrettably closed to the public. Here you will find the old town bell, a memorial erected to honour the men from the district who lost their lives in World Wars I and II, and the occasional tortoise, brought here to recover from injuries suffered on the surrounding roads.

Buildings of Historical & Architectural Significance Anglican Church, Pienaar Street, cnr Stuart Street A charming, yet sadly neglected little church, it was built in the late 1800s. Anglo-Boer War Fort, Vegkop Lane, off Leep Street On a hill on private property overlooking both the town and the countryside to the north, is the small loose- stone fort built by the soldiers of the 4th North Stafford Regiment to protect Richmond from possible attack by the Boer forces of the South African and Free State republics. An assault, led by General Wynand Malan, eventually came early on the morning of 25 June 1901 and lasted twelve hours. Imperial force casualties numbered sixteen, and they were laid to rest in the tiny Anglican cemetery in Paul Street. The fort may be viewed by appointment only.

De Oude Dak, 237 Paul Street Paul Street, which hugs the winding Wilgersloot River, was where the first plots were sold when the village of Richmond was proclaimed in 1845. Sadly, many of the original homes have either been demolished, or their appearance altered beyond recognition. Fortunately, however, the very first house to be erected following the auctioning of plots in April 1845 remains, and in fairly good condition, despite its exterior walls having been painted a garish turquoise green. Its real beauty, however, lies within as both ceilings and floors are of yellowwood whilst most of the doors are of stinkwood with yellowwood panels. De Oude Dak is a provincial heritage site.

Old Driefontein Farmstead, 214 Paul Street Situated between the Sprigg Bridge and De Oude Dak, and fronting onto a wide water furrow is Paul van der Merwe’s old farmhouse, the original section of which was probably built in the 1830s. It was here that religious services were held for two years until completion of the church in 1847. For long neglected, it has a particularly high-pitched roof of corrugated iron; the stoep having been converted to a verandah some time thereafter.

Old Driefontein Farm Manager’s House, Spring Street at its intersection with Loop Street Perched on the summit of a steep incline, and overlooking the Wilgersloot River and Sprigg Bridge, is a quaint little cottage with white walls, a faded black pitched roof and pale blue woodwork, all in serious need of a little TLC. This was the original farm manager’s cottage. Hidden in the rocks just below the house, one of the three springs from which the farm derived its name, still sprouts forth.

Dutch Reformed Church, Loop Street Tel: 053 693 0015 The original core of this impressive neo-gothic building was designed by JL Leeb, and the cornerstone laid by the Reverend JF Berrange in October 1844. Built by Joseph Sandilands, the woodwork was completed by C & R Stevens. A feature of the church is its pulpit. Reputed to be one of the tallest in the country, it was hand-carved by LF Anhuyse, who also crafted the pulpit in the Groote Kerk in Cape Town. Consecrated in February 1847, a tower and two wings were added to the church in 1906 from architectural drawings by PW Theron. The church building is a provincial heritage site.

Fossilized Trees, Ka-Ma Restaurant, 1 Spring Street In the garden of this restaurant are the stubs of two fossilized trees of unknown age, and probably ‘replanted’ there at the time of the restaurant’s construction.

Hitching Post, Loop Street, cnr Kerk Street Under a tree, across the road from the Dutch Reformed Church in Loop Street, a rectangular stone slab protrudes unobtrusively from the sidewalk. This is the only remaining horse hitching-post in the town. Huis van Licht en Schadeuw, 24 Loop Street, cnr Spring Street

As Spring Street - on the corner of which this delightful house stands - leads down to the Wilgersloot River, the house is built on two levels, the upper level accommodating what were originally the entrance hall, sitting room and dining room, and the lower level the bedrooms and kitchen. Erected not long after Richmond’s founding in 1845, it has a verandah on two sides and pitched roof, whilst all the interior woodwork is of Oregon. It now serves as an antiquarian and collectables bookshop.

Richmond Information Centre, 32 Loop Street, cnr Leep Street Located across the road from the museum and, because it is built on an incline, also featuring a raised stoop, this is one of the few remaining flat-roofed houses in Richmond. Old School Hostel, 32 Loop Street

Across the road and a short way down from the museum is a building which for some time served as the first school’s hostel. It has particularly high ceilings crafted, like all the other interior woodwork, from Oregon. The building today serves as a restaurant

Sprigg Bridge, Spring Street at its intersection with Pienaar Street In the rain season the Wilgersloot River can rise quite rapidly to a considerable height, as the stone walls that line its banks testify. So in 1846 a wooden footbridge was built to allow the residents of Paul Street access to the church being built on the other side of the river. Ox wagons would negotiate the river via the natural drift to the side of the bridge which is to this day used by vehicular traffic. Years later, the wooden bridge was replaced with a steel structure and named for Sir Gordon Sprigg who succeeded William Schreiner as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. A walk across the bridge is well worth the effort, as it gives one an excellent perspective of the village’s original dimensions.

Victoria Guest House, 125 Pienaar Street With its cast-iron broekie-lace verandah trim, Cape Dutch gables, splendid front door with stained glass windows, and pretty rose garden, this popular guest house is a magnificent example of late Victorian Karoo architecture. Access from the street is via a walkway which traverses a deep water furrow.

Copyright: Darrel Conolly