Clanwilliam and the Olifants River valley: settlement and church jurisdiction
reference (administrative history) · consulted 2026-07-29
- Type
- reference (administrative history)
- Repository
- web
- Reference
- clanwilliam.info, History of Clanwilliam
- Consulted
- 2026-07-29
The citation as it was given
First farm in the Olifants River valley granted to Pieter van Zyl in 1732; the town founded between 1804 and 1808 and renamed Clanwilliam on 1 January 1814. THE KEY LINE: "Until 1826 Clanwilliam formed part of the town Tulbagh" - some families used the Zwartland church at Malmesbury instead - and "a priest from Tulbagh visited Clanwilliam annually to administer sacraments and baptisms." So there was NO CONGREGATION in the Olifants River valley before 1826.
Kept verbatim. This project contradicts published genealogies and corrects a family's own oral tradition, so every claim has to be checkable by someone who was not in the room.
What rests on this source
People
- Ockert Oosthuizen (b.1755) 1755 – about 1809-04