Middelwater

169 on the cadastre · on record 1777–1990 · show on the map

Farm number: No. 169
On the cadastre: 169, whole farmregistered as MIDDLEWATER
District: Prince Albert
Extent, as the diagram states it: 10731 morgen 100 sq roods
Modern surveyed area: 8944.0 ha

The historic extent and the modern surveyed area are two separate measurements and are not presented here as confirming each other. The first is what a surveyor wrote on a diagram, usually in morgen. The second is what the modern cadastre draws.

Why this farm is here

Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen held it. 7 km from Klaarstroom.

Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen is on record on this ground directly. No trace needed.

story A written history is set on this ground The portraits found at Middelwater
story A written history is set on this ground The fifteenth of April, 1841
story A written history names this ground Almero
story A written history names this ground Rondabel No. 124: a farm history
…and 2 more, listed in full further down this page.

Stories

set here The portraits found at Middelwater
Two framed portrait sketches out of a loft on Klueplaas, which is ex-Middelwater ground. No names on the backing. A strong circumstantial case that they are Ockert Almero Oosthuizen and Aletta Hitge, and no evidence at all. The images are NOT published: permission has not been asked.
about this farm The fifteenth of April, 1841
One surveyor works the Koup for two seasons. Eight years later, on a single day, the Crown turns a dozen loan farms into freehold - and the map of the district is set for a century.
mentions this farm Almero
A Venetian teenager in the service of the Dutch East India Company stands godfather at a Cape baptism in 1786. Six generations of Karoo farmers carry his name, and nobody remembers why.
mentions this farm Rondabel No. 124: a farm history
From a loan-farm widow who signed with a mark to the Marincowitz farm of today: the full documented history of Rondabel No. 124 - the Venter household of 1829, the twelve-farm grant day of 1841, the Oosthuizen-Theron partnership of 1868, the 1910-34 subdivisions, and the two graves by the huis nobody has read.
about this farm Middelwater No. 169: a farm history
From a loan farm on the Zwartberg to eight cadastral parcels: the full documented history of Middelwater No. 169 - Stretch's 1833 survey for Okert Oosthuizen, the twelve-farm grant day of 1841, the 1883 resurvey and the 1884 quitrent to J.D.J. Oosthuysen 'and another', the portions cut off for a spring called Vaste Water and a place called Avondrust, and the 1990 power-line survey whose coordinates finally put the farm on a map.
mentions this farm Vrolykheid No. 177: a farm history
The farm where the paper and the people disagree: Stretch's 1833 survey already carrying the names of portions not cut for another century, two titles granted on one day in 1841 - one to an Oosthuisen and one to an 'N. Hitge' whose deed four later portions cite instead - a Trieste immigrant who married a Hitge in 1844 and died holding the farm in 1890, and the death notice that finally put the Hitges on the ground.
mentions this farm De Claar Stroom: the farm the town stands on
The loan farm De Claar Stroom (Klaarstroom No. 178), granted 1777, is the ground Klaarstroom village stands on, not to be confused with Klaarstroom No. 184, which is Christian Hatting's grant 19 km west. Meiringspoort opened in 1858; twenty-seven erven were laid out on Petrus Oosthuizen's land and the village was called Petersburg for him. The erven were sold WITHOUT water rights. Who Petrus was is still unknown, and the one testable fact about him is a brother named Ockert.
set here The brother-in-law who founded a town
Two daughters of Middelwater marry two van Zyl brothers in the 1830s. One stays. The other goes north on the trek and is dead by about 1840, and her husband lives another sixty-six years and lays out the Free State town of Brandfort on his farm Keerom - described in print as a Voortrekker from Prince Albert.
mentions this farm The church at Zeekoegat
Three generations of Oosthuizens in the Zwartberg church, and the rich farmer who built a chapel 65 km out on the dirt for a hundred people.
mentions this farm The muster roll
Nine fields in a Dutch East India Company ledger: a young man from Woerden - or Werden, or Werl - sails from Texel owing the Company his passage, sees Table Bay 127 days later, and five years on stops being a servant and becomes a settler. Everyone in this project descends from that decision.
mentions this farm Three farms in one deed: Anna Margaretha, 1937
On 20 December 1937 one transfer deed put three farms and 11,897 morgen into the name of Anna Margaretha Marincowitz, born Oosthuizen - Tokkie's mother, and one of only seven women in this model recorded holding ground in her own right. Her father had died fourteen months earlier and her brother took the neighbouring portion the same day.
mentions this farm Two farms called Vrolykheid
Two farms of one name, 400 km apart. The 1816 Tulbagh diagram names four neighbours; two of the surnames turn up in the Koup and only ONE survives being looked at. Jan de Bruin, whose 1823 estate held a farm the inventories call Rondabel, was baptised at Tulbagh in 1769, but the Theron who took Rondabel in 1868 was a Roggeveld man, and that thread is a coincidence of surname reported as one.
mentions this farm Eighty-one thousand morgen
Frederik Simon 'Oom Frikkie' Oosthuizen died in 1936 holding, by one account, 81,000 morgen around Zwartkraal - about a quarter of all the ground on this map. This project holds not one deed in his name. What the money was probably in, what it was certainly not in, and the one document that would settle it.
set here Thirty-two years
Adriana Cecilia Venter bore fourteen children between 1808 and about 1840. She was sixteen at the first and about forty-eight at the last, and the thirty-two years between them are exactly the period in which this family took its land.
mentions this farm Cut, and then stitched
This project holds 124 boundary acts: 96 subdivisions and 20 consolidations. Sorted by date they tell one story with a turning point. The district cut ground for a hundred and fifty years; from 1970 it has only stitched.
mentions this farm The farm he was born on
Jan Adriaan Venter was born on Wolve Kraal in 1823, orphaned off it at five, bought it at thirty-one, halved it and named half after himself at thirty-three, and spent the next thirty-seven years selling that half away.
mentions this farm Twenty-four months
Between February 1858 and February 1860 the Koup acquired a road to the sea, buried the couple the whole district descends from, laid out a village, had Crown land surveyed on its eastern edge, and met the industry that paid for the next forty years.
mentions this farm The words on the papers
A glossary of the words these documents actually use — leeningsplaats, opstal, erfpacht, kwitrent, morgen and square roods, veldkornetskap, Weeskamer, vendue, d'oude — each illustrated by a verbatim line from the family's own papers.
mentions this farm Kopjes Kraal: a farm that lost a quarter of itself, and a road nobody uses
Crown land surveyed in 1859 at 6,325 morgen and resurveyed four years later at 4,982 - about 1,343 morgen fewer, unexplained. Granted in 1871 to Gerolm Marincowitz of Trieste, whose surname reaches the Karoo from the Adriatic and not from the Netherlands. A stock route across it was ended by a line in a provincial gazette in 1926, and half of what was left became Kromrivier in 1934.
mentions this farm Four grandparents, four countries
How four grandparents out of four lines met: three weddings in four years at Bellville and Williston, and a fourth marriage that tied two of them back together after both were widowed. Each line has its own page; this one is the join. Of the four countries the title promises, this record can point at one on a map.
set here The Oosthuizens of the Koup
Eight generations east, from a VOC soldier off the Land van Schouwen in 1685 to a farmer baptised at Prince Albert in 1909. An 1809 estate inventory shows a forge on the Olifants River and explains in one line why the family left: the farm was sold to the eldest son for 1 000 rixdollars, and the rest had to find ground elsewhere. After 1836 they stop moving, and title and a congregation arrive in the same two years.

What the record holds, in order

1777–1860 boundary change subdivision: from De Claar Stroom (the 1777 loan farm)
1821~ to 188X ownership Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen (14 June 1792–1860)
occupation · confidence medium
about 1821 lived here Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen (14 June 1792–1860)
farming
1833 boundary change consolidation: becomes Drooge Kloof
August 1833 document SG diagram 349/1833
Bf.W.Q.5-7
1833 to 1841-04-15 ownership Okert Oosthuizen
loan farm · occupation · confidence high
27 November 1836 lived here Ockert Almero Oosthuizen (27 November 1836–2 January 1922)
birth/farming
1836 lived here Susanna Catharina Oosthuizen (b.1819) (31 May 1819–24 September 1856)
farming
15 April 1841 ownership owner not named in the record
Perpetual Quitrent · grant · confidence medium
about 1850 lived here Cornelis Andries Oosthuizen (b.1828) (1828–24 April 1871)
farming
18 February 1860 lived here Johanna Machteld Petronella Strydom (5 January 1792–18 February 1860)
farming · to 1860-02-18
1883 boundary change subdivision: becomes Klein Vlei (Middelwater portion)
October 1883 document SG diagram 1364/1883
P.A.Q.3-3
1883 document SG diagram verso 1364/1883 (verso)
24 March 1884 ownership Jacobus Daniel Johannes Oosthuizen (2 September 1823–11 June 1903), Oosthuysen co-owner (unidentified)
quitrent · grant · confidence high
1923 boundary change subdivision: becomes Vaste Water (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 5)
1926 boundary change subdivision: becomes Avondrust (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 6)
July 1988–August 1989 document SG diagram L.G. 6955-90
K.354/96
1990 document SG diagram L.G. 6954/90
K.354/96s
undated boundary change subdivision: becomes Rietfontein
undated boundary change remainder: becomes Moreson (Middelwater No. 169 Remainder)
undated boundary change subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 1
undated boundary change subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 2
undated boundary change subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 3
undated boundary change subdivision: becomes Ebeneser (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 4)
undated boundary change subdivision: becomes Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 7
undated boundary change subdivision: becomes Remainder (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 2)

Ground cut out of this farm

Avondrust (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 6) 6/169 · 876.9 ha
Vaste Water (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 5) 5/169 · 9.1 ha
Klein Vlei (Middelwater portion)
Moreson (Middelwater No. 169 Remainder) RE/169 · 378.4 ha
Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 1 1/169 · 2351.7 ha
Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 2 2/169 · 936.9 ha
Remainder (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 2) 2/169 · 382.5 ha
Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 3 3/169 · 3544.8 ha
Ebeneser (Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 4) 4/169 · 846.1 ha
Middelwater No. 169 Ptn 7 7/169 · 554.4 ha

Bordered by, as the diagram names them

N Remhoogte
S Klein Vlei
E Rondabel
E Klaarstroom
W Remhoogte
W Venterskloof
N Government ground
S Klaar Water
S Rondewal
W Klein Valle

Also bordered by, as the modern cadastre draws it

Ground that touches this farm on the Surveyor-General's current polygons and that none of the diagrams held here names. Derived from the geometry, not read off a document.

Documents

Scan of Surveyor-General diagram, 1364/1883, October 1883

Surveyor-General diagram, 1364/1883, October 1883
11572715.PDF

Scan of Surveyor-General diagram, 349/1833, August 1833

Surveyor-General diagram, 349/1833, August 1833
10JCGZ01.TIF

held as pdf

Diagram verso, 1364/1883 (verso), 1883
11572716.PDF

catalogued, no scan held

Surveyor-General diagram, L.G. 6955-90, July 1988–August 1989
10JC2D01.TIF

catalogued, no scan held

Surveyor-General diagram, L.G. 6954/90, 1990
10VGXQ01.jpg

Cadastre

Surveyor-General diagram index for this parcel

Research notes

Oosthuizen ancestral farm [29 Jul 2026] Neighbour Reim Hoogte (No.167) confirmed as N/W boundary via its own 1833 diagram, DOC-0070 - not itself a tracked parcel. [30 Jul 2026] All eight cadastral parcels on farm 169 are now in the model (PAR-000075-081 plus Vaste Water and Avondrust). THIS ROW REMAINS THE WHOLE FARM as granted, and its outline therefore overlaps its own portions - the two are different claims about the same ground, a century apart, and both are kept. AREA, AND THE UNIT TRAP THAT GOES WITH IT. The grant is 10,731 MORGEN 100 roods, which is 9,191.6 ha; the bare number 10,731 read as hectares overstates the farm by a sixth, and these sheets change units mid-table (DOC-0219 has one row in morgen and the next in hectares). Note also that PAR-000077 and PAR-000078 are Portion 2 and Portion 2 Remainder, so summing every row on farm 169 counts that ground twice. WHAT THE ARITHMETIC ACTUALLY SAYS, corrected 9 Aug 2026 after THEY ARE NOT. The cadastre holds both: Portion 2 at 936.9 ha (...169000020) and its Remainder at 382.5 (...169000021), and the 554.4 ha between them is PORTION 7 to the tenth of a hectare. Both rows had been pinned to the Remainder's key, which is why the site showed two parcels at one area. THE FARM TILES LIKE THIS: Remainder 378.4 + Ptn 1 2,351.7 + PTN 2 REMAINDER 382.5 + Ptn 3 3,544.8 + Ptn 4 846.1 + Ptn 5 9.1 + Ptn 6 876.9 + PTN 7 554.4 = 8,943.9 ha, against this outline's 8,944.0 and its polygon's 8,949.9. Count the Remainder of Portion 2 and Portion 7, or count Portion 2 whole, never both. An earlier version of this paragraph reached the same total by dropping PAR-000078 as a duplicate and keeping PAR-000077 at 382.5 - the right number from the wrong two rows. The only real gap left is between the 1883 grant, 9,191.6 ha, and the modern outline, 8,949.9: 241.7 ha or 2.6%. A chain-and-compass survey of 1883 read against modern coordinates will differ by about that much, and no deduction is needed to account for it, but this project has not proved which it is. [TO VERIFY]

[SRC-010, Rose Willis Klaarstroom cameo. TERTIARY, TO VERIFY] 'The original farmhouse at Middelwater is also an interesting building. It has yellowwood ceilings, wall cupboards and ancient stairs to its loft.' It says the KLUE FAMILY hold it, and hold a nearby farm with an old Devonshire cob-style straw and mud-brick house under a brakdak. We hold no modern owner for Middelwater. Klue/Klueplaas is already in this project.

[1 Aug 2026, SRC-186] A PRIMARY PLACE FOR THE ARRIVAL YEAR. The Beaufort West baptism register has Cornelis Andries Oosthuijzen and Johanna Magdalena Petronella Strijdom's son born 'AAN KRIEDOUW' on 26 July 1821 and baptised 19 August. This model dates the Oosthuizen establishment at Middelwater to about 1821 (EVT-000002) - so here is the same couple, dated, in that year, at a named place that is not Middelwater. It either corroborates the arrival, refines it or moves it, and Kriedouw has to be located first. See LEAD-0052.

[6 Aug 2026, SRC-294] [FAMILY] A VAN ZYL HOUSEHOLD LIVING HERE BETWEEN THE SURVEY AND THE GRANT. Fred van Zyl states that his great-grandfather Jan Adriaan van Zyl was born on Middelwater on 9 November 1839 - so Wynand van ZylM and Johanna Jacomina OosthuizenM (PER-000122), the root couple's eldest daughter, were living on her father's farm after their marriage, in the years between Stretch's 1833 survey and the 1841 quitrent grant. This model held the marriage and not the residence. A married daughter's household on the home farm is entirely ordinary and that is rather the point: it is the kind of fact deeds never record and only a family remembers. The November 1839 baptism entry names the farm. [TO VERIFY] LEAD-0110.

[8 Aug 2026] THE FARM LEAVES THE FAMILY IN JUNE 1884. Thwaits's resurvey (DOC-0001) and its verso (DOC-0039) have now both been read. The quitrent title P.A.Q.3-3 issued to "J. D. J. Oosthuysen, and another" on 24 March 1884; the verso's first deduction transfers 9,264 morgen 180 roods away on 26 June 1884, THREE MONTHS LATER AND 86% OF THE FARM. What remains is exactly 477 morgen, the south-western quarter carrying the werf, the vineyard, Vaste Water and Avondrust. Sale or partition between the two co-grantees is undecided and the co-grantee is unnamed: LEAD-0136. The farm also GREW between its two surveys, from Stretch's 8,843 morgen in 1833 to 10,731 morgen 100 roods in 1883, and its 1833 "Government ground" neighbours to the north and east are named farms by 1883.

The research behind this page, kept separate from it: dated working notes, open questions, and what is not yet settled.

Open questions

The 1821 Beaufort West opgaafrol priority 1 · LEAD-0003
Which field cornetcy were the Oosthuizens in when they first appear in the Koup - and does the roll name their loan place?

What would settle it The roll entry itself. Tax rolls are organised BY FIELD CORNETCY - the residential unit - not by town, which is exactly why they beat baptism registers for this question.
Morgen or hectares? extent_text may be inconsistent priority 1 · LEAD-0007
Are the figures in parcels.extent_text really morgen, or are some of them hectares mislabelled as morgen?

What would settle it Reading the figure and its unit directly off the diagrams for the nine flagged parcels.
Was Middelwater Portion 3 known as Droge Kloof? priority 1 · LEAD-0023
Portion 3 is 4,251 ha, two fifths of the original Middelwater, and no document we hold names it. A homestead called Droge Kloof stands on it. Is that the portion's name, and who took it off the farm, and when?

What would settle it A diagram or deed naming the portion. The cadastre already gives it a key (3/169), so the SG holds a diagram for it - ordering that one sheet probably answers the whole question.
Is Venters Kloof named for Adriana Cecilia Venter's family - and did the Oosthuizens follow them to the Koup? priority 1 · LEAD-0027
Venters Kloof No. 168 lies immediately north of Middelwater No. 169, and the root ancestor Ockert Almero OosthuizenL married ADRIANA CECILIA VENTER. Did her family hold that kloof, and is that why the Oosthuizens ended up on the ground next to it?

What would settle it A Venter named as holder or grantee of No. 168. Equally decisive the other way: a grantee of another surname, which would make the name a fossil of an earlier occupier and kill the family connection.
Who was Petrus Oosthuizen of Klaarstroom, and how is he related? priority 1 · LEAD-0029
The village at the centre of this project's anchor was laid out on his land in 1858-60 and originally named Petersburg for him. He is not in the model's family. Where does he sit, and is he a descendant of the root couple?

What would settle it The death notice - it names parents, spouses and surviving children.
Where is Drooge Kloof, the house Frans's father grew up in? priority 1 · LEAD-0064
Drooge Kloof is a werf name in family use - Frans's father grew up in the house - and it is NOT a farm name in the Prince Albert cadastre. It appears twice in the paper, on two DIFFERENT pieces of ground: as the Government ground annexed into Middelwater No. 169 by the 1833 diagram, and as a struck-through 'Droege Kloof' against Portion 3 of Bloemendal Annex No. 164 on its 1913 verso. Which one is the family's?

What would settle it Frans saying which farm the house is on, or a coordinate.
Was a van Zyl household living on Middelwater in 1839, and was Jacobus Johannes on Vrolikheid in 1809? priority 1 · LEAD-0110
Fred van Zyl states that his great-grandfather Jan Adriaan van Zyl was born on Middelwater on 9 November 1839, and that Ockert Jacobus OosthuizenL was born on Vrolikheid in 1809. Both would put named households on this project's core ground a generation earlier than its documents do.

What would settle it The two baptism entries. Each names the farm and the parents in the same line.
Who was the "and another" who took 86% of Middelwater in June 1884 priority 1 · LEAD-0136
The 1884 quitrent title to Middelwater No. 169 issued to "J. D. J. Oosthuysen, and another", and the co-grantee is not named on the diagram. Three months later 9,264 morgen 180 roods - 86% of the farm - transferred away under transfer 304 of 26 June 1884. Who was the second grantee, and was that transfer a sale out of the family or a partition between the two of them?

What would settle it The grant P.A.Q.3-3 or transfer 304, either of which names the second party.
Wilgemond's diagram number: 150/1833, or 350 mis-transcribed in 1952? priority 2 · LEAD-0025
Every other farm in Stretch's August 1833 run carries a diagram number between 348 and 369, and their quitrent folios rise with them. Wilgemond is numbered 150/1833 yet holds folio 5-9, which falls exactly inside that run. Is the number wrong?

What would settle it The original diagram, or the SG's index of 1833 Prince Albert diagrams.
Who does the 1841 Middelwater deed actually name? priority 2 · LEAD-0099
Middelwater No. 169's 1841 quitrent title, Bf.W.Q. 5-7, names no grantee on the copy this project holds. Who does the register name?

What would settle it The register page: volume 5, folio 7.
Diagram 6954/90 is not held priority 3 · LEAD-0016
Middelwater carries two 1990 Eskom servitude diagrams, 6955-90 and 6954/90, under one survey record E 131/90. We hold 6955-90 in full and only the endorsement sheet of 6954/90. What ground does 6954/90 cover?

What would settle it The diagram itself; it will carry its own Lo23 coordinate table.
De Claar Stroom: one parcel or two? priority 3 · LEAD-0039
PAR-000004 is the 1777 loan farm De Claar Stroom and PAR-000097 is cadastral farm 178, the ground Klaarstroom village stands on. Should they be one parcel row or two?

What would settle it The extent on the 178 title, compared with the loan farm's described run. If they are the same ground, one row; if 178 is a part, two.
Is Arthur Kleu the painter one of the Kleus of Klueplaas? And is Kleu the same surname as Klue? priority 3 · LEAD-0125
Frans holds a painting of MEIRINGSPOORT by ARTHUR LIONEL KLEU (1915-2008), a shopkeeper, inherited from his grandfather. Middelwater carries the werf name KLUEPLAAS. Are they one family, and are Kleu and Klue one surname?

What would settle it A common ancestor, or a Kleu/Klue baptism at Prince Albert or Klaarstroom in the nineteenth century that ties either line to the district.

What the record is missing

The record stops in 1884 and never resumes second order · B2 trail-ends
Middelwater was worked as far as 1884-03-24, with Jacobus Daniel Johannes OosthuizenH and Oosthuysen co-ownerH (unidentified) the last owner on record. 142 years follow with nothing. Who held it after that, and is it still one farm?

What would settle it The current title deed traced backwards, each transfer names the one before it, or the Surveyor-General's subdivision diagrams, which are what usually explain a farm going quiet.
43 years, and the ground changes hands to nobody we can follow second order · B1 succession
On Middelwater, an unnamed holder is the last owner recorded from 1841-04-15, and the next entry is Jacobus Daniel Johannes OosthuizenH and Oosthuysen co-ownerH (unidentified) from 1884-03-24, 43 years later, with no person in common. DOC-0001 records the later arrival but not the 43 years before it.

What would settle it The Deeds Office transfer register for this farm between 1841 and 1884. A transfer names its predecessor in title, so one deed closes the whole gap.
“Remhoogte” is named as a neighbour 3 times and we hold no parcel for it second order · B3 unheld-farm
3 separate surveys in this model put Remhoogte on the boundary of ground we do hold (PAR-000001, PAR-000009). It has no parcel of its own here, so nothing is known about who held it or when, while it borders farms at the centre of the project.

What would settle it The Surveyor-General's farm index for the registration division will give it a farm number and a diagram; the cadastre pull in `data/fetch_cadastre.py` then places it on the map.
A tenure with no one in it second order · B7 no-owner
OWN-000027 records a grant on Middelwater from 1841-04-15 and names no party. Either the holder was never read off the document, or the publishing rule withheld them, the page cannot tell you which, and neither can this.

What would settle it Re-read DOC-0038.
“Klaar Water” is named as a neighbour 2 times and we hold no parcel for it third order · B3 unheld-farm
2 separate surveys in this model put Klaar Water on the boundary of ground we do hold (PAR-000001, PAR-000087). It has no parcel of its own here, so nothing is known about who held it or when, while it borders farms at the centre of the project.

What would settle it The Surveyor-General's farm index for the registration division will give it a farm number and a diagram; the cadastre pull in `data/fetch_cadastre.py` then places it on the map.

Found by breaks.py reading the model against itself, not written by hand, each one is a shape of missing record, not a fault in the data. The whole set is on the questions page.