De Claar Stroom (the 1777 loan farm)

· on record 1777–1822 · show on the map

District: Prince Albert

This is the same ground as De Claar Stroom (Klaarstroom No. 178), recorded here under an earlier name. It is not drawn separately on the map because there is only one piece of ground, and that page carries it.

Why this farm is here

Hermanus Carel du Preez (1760-1839) held it, and no kinship to the Oosthuizen, Marincowitz or Van der Merwe lines is recorded, this ground entered through the land, not the family. Not yet placed on the map.

story A written history names this ground Middelwater's story since 1777
story A written history names this ground Vrolykheid's story
story A written history is set on this ground From Modder Fonteyn to the Koup, 1809-1841
story A written history is set on this ground The Koup before the grants, 1762-1841
…and 2 more, listed in full further down this page.

Stories

mentions this farm Middelwater's story since 1777
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's story
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.
set here From Modder Fonteyn to the Koup, 1809-1841
A clerk from the Orphan Chamber rode out to de Modder Fonteyn on the Olifants River on 23 April 1809 and wrote down what was in the house, room by room, including a complete forge in a room called the winkel. The owner had died intestate and his wife before him. Eleven children are named with their ages, and the seven youngest were placed with their eldest brother, aged twenty-five, who had promised to raise and school them. He bought the farm for a thousand rixdollars; the other ten had to find ground elsewhere. Twenty-five years later Oosthuizen households held two of three adjoining farms along the north foot of the Swartberg; the middle one was a du Preez's.
set here The Koup before the grants, 1762-1841
The district in the Dutch East India Company's own minutes, from the Swartberg being taken as a jurisdictional wall in 1770 to more than a hundred places standing abandoned in 1791. The Koup is named, given an officer, bounded by rivers and emptied, all before the grants of 1841 that this record otherwise begins with.

What this farm became

From 1777/1860 this ground stopped being one farm, and the story continues on the pieces cut from it. Its own record above ends there; what happened afterwards belongs to a portion, not to the whole.

1777/1860 Middelwater

Still filed here, and probably should not be. These rows are dated after this ground stopped being one farm, so under the rule above they belong on a portion. They are shown rather than hidden, because a misfiled row is only fixable once somebody can see it.

1822 ownership Hermanus Carel du Preez (1760-1839) (1760-10-04–1839-07-14)

What the record holds, in order

1777–1860 boundary change subdivision: becomes Middelwater
1777–1860 boundary change same_as: becomes De Claar Stroom (Klaarstroom No. 178)
1777 event De Claar Stroom loan farm granted
parent farm of Middelwater and Klaarstroom This is PAR-000097, Klaarstroom No. 178. The loan farm itself is PAR-000004.
1822 ownership Hermanus Carel du Preez (1760-1839) (4 October 1760–14 July 1839)
loan farm · occupation · confidence high

Research notes

1777 loan farm; parent of Middelwater + Klaarstroom

[31 Jul 2026, audit] RENAMED to distinguish it from PAR-000097. The two are NOT duplicates and the collision was a search that missed: PAR-000097 was added for cadastral farm 178 after a search of the model for 'Klaarstroom' and not for 'Claar', which never reached this row. They are the same GROUND at two scales - this is the 1777 loan farm as a whole, which the cameo has running from Middelwater to Vrolikheid, and PAR-000097 is the 7,259 ha modern farm 178 surviving out of it. The model already expresses that relationship for Middelwater (PLK-000001, subdivision), and PAR-000097 now has the same link. WHETHER THEY SHOULD BE ONE PARCEL is a real question and is recorded as a lead rather than decided here.

*** [4 Aug 2026, FRANS, FAMILY] DIE TWEE DE CLAAR STROOM-RYE IS EEN PLAAS. *** [FAMILY] De claar stroom 178 and the other overlapping farm is the same. So PAR-000004, recorded here as the 1777 LOAN FARM, and PAR-000097, KLAARSTROOM No. 178, are the same ground under two epochs of record - the loan farm before survey, and the registered farm after it. They are not two farms and must not be counted, mapped or linked as two. WHAT WAS CHECKED BEFORE ACTING: no polygon in this model actually overlaps 178 except at the shared edges of its neighbours, so 'overlapping' means the two RECORDS overlap, not two shapes. PAR-000004 carries no farm number, no polygon and no centroid; PAR-000097 carries farm 178, its polygon and 7 259,5 ha. THE ROW IS KEPT, NOT DELETED - ids are permanent - and PAR-000004 stays as the record of the loan-farm epoch, which is where the 1777 date and the descent of Middelwater hang. It must never be pinned: there is only one piece of ground here and PAR-000097 is the one that carries it. This closes the De Claar Stroom third of LEAD-0080.

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

Open questions

Who held De Claar Stroom between 1777 and 1833, and why did the Oosthuizens come to this ground? priority 1 · LEAD-0216
The loan farm De Claar Stroom was granted in 1777 and ran from Middelwater to Vrolikheid. No holder is recorded for it before Petrus Oosthuizen in 1858. Who had it in between, and is there a tie between that household and the Oosthuizens of the Olifants River that would explain why they came to exactly this ground rather than anywhere else in the Karoo?

What would settle it A named holder of De Claar Stroom in the 1810s, and any tie of marriage, witnessing or trade between that household and the Oosthuizens before 1818.
Three farms carry the same name twice or three times, and ten story links are held back because of it priority 2 · LEAD-0080
Which Rietfontein, which De Claar Stroom, and is Sleutelfontein (Groot and Klein) a real parcel or a composite of two?

What would settle it For each mention, which parcel the sentence means. For Sleutelfontein, whether PAR-000098 should exist at all given PAR-000071/072.
Was Hilletje Elizabeth de Beer, who married an Oosthuizen about 1807, of the Kweekvallei de Beers? priority 2 · LEAD-0217
Jacobus Johannes Ockert Oosthuizen (b.1789, d. 16 Feb 1874), son of Marthinus of Tulbagh and a first cousin of the brothers who took up ground in the Koup, married Hilletje Elizabeth de Beer (b. about May 1788, d. 12 Dec 1873) around 1807. Was she of the de Beer family that had held Kweekvallei in the Koup since 1762? If she was, this marriage is a channel by which an Oosthuizen household could have learnt what ground was open behind the Swartberg.

What would settle it A document naming Hilletje Elizabeth de Beer's father.
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.