Before the Koup: the Cango and the Olifants, 1760-1824
Sixty years before the Oosthuizens stand on Vrolykheid, their road runs through the Cango and down the Olifants river, along the farms of the mother's family
A prelude in timeline form. From Louis van Wyk's loan place Vergelegen in the Cango in 1760, through the van Tonder and van Wyk kin of Susanna Catharina van Tonder, to Ockert Oosthuizen's death on de Modder Fonteyn in 1809, the farm's passing out of the family, and his eldest son on Vrolykheid in the Koup by 1822. Each entry says why it belongs on the road.
In October 1760 Louis van Wyk was given grazing on a loan place called Vergelegen, in die Cango agter de Cochemans Cloof. He was among the first farmers to take up ground beyond Cogmanskloof.
He is not an Oosthuizen, and he never came near the Koup. He belongs at the head of this road because of his sister. Both were children of Adriaan van Wyk and Sara Fourie. Susanna van Wyk had married Cornelis van Tonderen in 1749. Their daughter Susanna Catharina van Tonder married Ockert Oosthuizen in 1783. In 1809 Ockert died on de Modder Fonteyn, on the Olifants river. By 1822 his eldest son was on Vrolykheid below the Swartberg, where the rest of this site begins.
So this page is a prelude. It follows the mother's family into the Cango and the Olifants valley, and the Oosthuizen household after them, up to the year the sons appear in the Koup. The first column gives the date. The second says what happened and puts it in context. The third says why the entry is here: each one carries part of the road, and none is included only because it is old. The fourth gives the source.
Some of the early entries rest on secondary sources, and they say so. The years 1760 to 1792 come from a family history blog that cites a study of early Oudtshoorn and the Swellendam loan farm registers, which have not been checked here. Two dates come from De Villiers' Geslacht-register of 1893, a compiled genealogy with known errors. From 1799 on, all but one entry rests on a register, a tax roll or an estate that has been read; the exception is the marriage of 1807, taken from a compiled family list.
The people and the places
parent and childmarriedheld, lived on or recorded atHover over or tap a name to see who and what it is joined to.
The timeline
| Date | What happened | Why it is here | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 1760 | Louis van Wyk takes up Vergelegen in the Cango. Grazing rights on the loan place beside the Cango river, among the first trekboer holdings in what became the Oudtshoorn district. He was married to Hester de Jager and had a son of five, also Louis. Of the 214 loan places given out beyond Cogmanskloof between 1740 and 1791, more than half were lived on for five years or less, so a holding kept for long was the exception. | The first of the mother's kin beyond Cogmanskloof. Louis is Susanna Catharina van Tonder's uncle. | Familiejoernaal blog, citing A. Appel and the loan farm register [SRC-651] not yet verified; Appel's article for the 214 loan places [SRC-658] |
| 3 February 1763 | A van Tonder holds a loan place behind Cogmanskloof. The estate of Gerbregt Bezuidenhout, wife of Cornelis van Tonderen, lists een opstal gen:t de Uijtvlugt, geleegen agter de Cogmans Cloof over de Zee Koerivier, with 21 cattle and 295 sheep, and arrears of rent owed to the Company on the place. De Villiers makes the widower Cornelis the younger, born in 1737 to his father's first wife and so Susanna Catharina's half-brother. Which of the several farms later called Uitvlugt it was is not known. | Within three years of Vergelegen, the van Tonders are on the same side of the mountains as the van Wyks. | Orphan Chamber estate MOOC8/10.46 [SRC-654]; De Villiers for the half-brother [SRC-656] |
| 20 February 1763 | Susanna Catharina van Tonder is baptised. She was a daughter of Cornelis van Tonderen and Susanna van Wyk. | She is the link. Through her the van Wyk and van Tonder network reaches the Oosthuizens. | De Villiers, Geslacht-register [SRC-656] |
| 1781 | Louis van Wyk the younger takes Oude Muragie. The loan place aan 't end van de Cango, near the later De Rust, was his until 1786. | Twenty-eight years later the landdrost's party signs at this same place four days before it reaches de Modder Fonteyn. | Familiejoernaal blog [SRC-651] not yet verified |
| 26 January 1783 | Ockert Oosthuizen marries Susanna Catharina van Tonder. He was born in 1755 and grew up at Tulbagh; she was nineteen. | The marriage that joins the Oosthuizens to the kin who were already in the Cango. | Compiled family list [SRC-073] |
| 1784 to 1786 | Susanna van Wyk lends money to her sons. Written obligations to Andries, Adriaan, Johan Jacobus and Roelof van Tonderen, and to her son-in-law Jacob van Antwerpen. | Susanna Catharina's brothers were being set up on their own ground. Where they went shaped where their sister's household could turn. | Her estate, MOOC8/45.89 [SRC-652] |
| 27 October 1786 | A van Wyk is made veldwagmeester on the Olifants river. The Swellendam heemraad appointed Louis van Wyk the younger as the local officer for the river's farmers, the year he left Oude Muragie. | The earliest sign of the family holding a place in the community on the Olifants itself, the river on which Ockert would die. | Familiejoernaal blog, citing the heemraad minutes [SRC-651] not yet verified |
| October 1792 | Louis van Wyk the younger moves on to Graaff-Reinet. By 1800 he is at the Sneeuwberg, where his wife Martha Bekker's estate was listed. | The kin network also reached north-east, and that is where Ockert's household turns up next. | Familiejoernaal blog [SRC-651]; Martha Bekker's estate [SRC-653] |
| July 1799 | Okker Oosthuyzen writes from the Kammanassie. In the Khoikhoi rising of 1799 he warns the Lange Kloof field cornet that two families have been killed and that the rebels are proceeding to destroy the country as far as the Cango. The field cornet tells the landdrost that Okker lives only at the distance of half a day's journey on horseback from here. By August the rising has reached the Olifants river. | The earliest record that puts Ockert himself in this country, between the Lange Kloof and the Olifants, ten years before de Modder Fonteyn. The letter is below. | Records of the Cape Colony, vol. II [SRC-661] |
| September 1799 | A son of Ockert and Susanna Catharina is baptised at Graaff-Reinet. The child is named Roelof, and the witnesses are Roelof van Tonder and his wife Maria Magdalena van den Berg. | The baptism follows the mother's brother, not the household's address. The same Roelof later died on a van Tonder farm in the Koup. | Graaff-Reinet baptism register [SRC-515] |
| 1806 | Susanna van Wyk dies. Her estate was inventoried only in December 1810, and by then it names among her heirs the children of her late daughter Susanna Catharina and the late Ockert Oosthuizen. | Her own estate proves that Susanna Catharina was her daughter. The link to the van Wyks is documented, not inferred. | Her estate, MOOC8/45.89 [SRC-652] |
| October 1807 | Ockert Almero Oosthuizen marries Adriana Cecilia Venter at Swellendam. He was a son of Ockert and Susanna Catharina, baptised in 1786. | The couple from whom most of the Koup family descends. Middelwater later came through her father. | Compiled family list [SRC-073] |
| 20 March 1808 | **A child is baptised at Swellendam, the parents woonende aan Oliphants Rivier.** Daniel Jacobus Johannes, son of Ockert Oosthuizen and a van Tonder, with Jacobus Johannes Oosthuizen and Anna Magdalena Strydom as witnesses. | The one entry that says where the household lived: on the Olifants river. | Swellendam baptism register [SRC-514] |
| 19 April 1809 | The landdrost's party signs at d'Oude Muragie. Landdrost A.A. Faure, his clerk and his messenger close an estate op 't eynde van de Cango. | It places de Modder Fonteyn on the same journey, four days away, in the country of the van Wyks. | Orphan Chamber estate MOOC8/28.25 [SRC-549] |
| 23 April 1809 | The estate at de Modder Fonteyn is inventoried. Ockert had died without a will, leaving eleven children. The clerk walks the house room by room and finds a forge in the winkel. | The household that would scatter. Several of these sons became the Oosthuizens of the Koup. | Orphan Chamber estate MOOC8/28.63 [SRC-092] |
| 11 December 1810 | Jacobus Johannes pays towards de Modder Fonteyn. The eldest son bought the farm out of the estate for 1,000 rixdollars and had paid 344. | One son kept the farm. The other ten had to find ground elsewhere. | The estate account, MOOC8/28.63 [SRC-092] |
| 1816 | Modder Fontyn is held on loan in the George tax roll. It is entered, very probably, on Jacob Oosthuysen's line, beside four Oosthuizen brothers on one opening. | The last year the farm is recorded in the family's hands. | George opgaafrol, volume J97 [SRC-459] |
| 1818 | Salomon Terblans is on Modder Fontein. He and Hester Helena Marx hold the place, with 6,500 vines. | Between 1816 and 1818 the farm left the Oosthuizens. Two of the brothers were still in the Olifants ward that year, so the family did not all leave with it. | George opgaafrol, volume J98 [SRC-644] |
| 1822 | Jacobus Johannes Oosthuizen is on Vrolykheid. The Beaufort tax roll enters Vrolykheid as his loan place, with ten more households of the family on the same opening. | The arrival. Ockert's eldest son, who had bought de Modder Fonteyn, is now at the foot of the Swartberg near Klaarstroom. The roll pairs him with his wife Anna Magdalena Strydom and sets his brothers beside him, and the Beaufort roll of 1824 enters him as Ockert Zoon with Vrolykheid on his line. | Beaufort opgaafrolle of 1822 and 1824 [SRC-558] [SRC-634] |
| 1823 to 1826 | Modder Fontyn passes to Daniel Jacobus Erasmus and is written Moeras Fontyn. The Terblanses leave after 1823; Erasmus holds the place from 1824, as Moeras Fontyn in 1825 and Modder Fontyn again in 1826. | The same holders under both names show that the two names are one farm, and that is what lets it be looked for on the map. | George opgaafrolle, 1823 to 1826 [SRC-638] [SRC-648] |
| 30 June 1832 | **Roodeklip is titled beside Loanplace Moerasfontyn.** The survey for Salomon Terblans names the loan place on its boundary. | It puts the farm on the ground: very probably Moerasfontein No. 27 in the Uniondale division, on the upper Olifants. | Diagram 352/1832 [SRC-649] |
Ockert's letter, July 1799
The rising of 1799 reached this country in the last week of July. The letter survives only in the English translation made for the British authorities at the time, printed by Theal in 1897, and it is given here as printed. The Dutch original has not been found.
[Copy of Translation.] Letter from Okker Oosthuyzen.
My Dear Friends, — These serve to let you know that the Rogues have murdered H. Strydom and J. Scheepers with their wives, and burnt everything. All the Inhabitants on the Baviaans Kloof have fled. The wachtmeester and the widow are with me and relate that the enemy approach. One of the Rogues reconnoitring the farm of Anthonie Nortje has been taken prisoner and says that his party have yesterday night attacked the farm of Pieter Goos and that the Hottentots divided in three parties are proceeding to destroy the country as far as the Cango.
I remain &c.
(Signed) Okker Oosthuyzen.
Cousin Piet, pray come speedily to our assistance for it is high time.
The letter carries no date. On 31 July 1799 Salomon Ferreira sent it on to the landdrost of Swellendam, and the same day the Lange Kloof field cornet Petrus Hendrik van Rooyen, the Cousin Piet of the postscript, wrote that he had received two letters from O. Oosthuyzen and B. Lindeque in the Cammasie, and that Okker Oosthuysen lives only at the distance of half a day's journey on horseback from here [SRC-661]. The Rogues and Hottentots are the words of the settlers and their translators: it was a rising of the Khoikhoi, joined by Xhosa groups. By 13 August Landdrost A.A. Faure, the man who would take Ockert's estate at de Modder Fonteyn in 1809, reported the rebels in possession of the Olifants river country up to Van der Walt's, where armed burghers stopped them.
That this is Ockert, born 1755, is very probable rather than proven: no other Okker Oosthuizen is known in this country in 1799, and his son of the same name was thirteen. not yet verified
What this story is about
- about Ockert Jacobus Oosthuizen (b.1755)
- about Susanna Catharina van Tonder
- about Louis van Wyk (1726-1805)
- set on De Modder Fonteyn (aan d'Olifants rivier)
- set on Vrolikheid
Sources
Everything this story rests on, with a link to the original wherever one exists. Where a citation is incomplete it says so, an incomplete citation is a research gap, not a formatting problem. If your work is here and the credit is wrong or thin, please tell us and it will be fixed.
- G.M. Theal (ed.), Records of the Cape Colony, vol. II (1897): the Swellendam letters of July-August 1799, including a letter from Okker Oosthuyzen in the Kammanassie Records of the Cape Colony 1793-1831, copied for the Cape Government from the manuscript documents in the Public Record Office, London, ed. George McCall Theal, vol. II (London: Government of the Cape Colony, 1897). Internet Archive, recordsofcapecol02theauoft. Private OCR copy: the private research folder/Records-of-the-Cape-Colony-referencevol. II pp. 448-453 (the July 1799 letters, 'Copy of Translation'), p. 469 (Faure, 13 Aug 1799), p. 472 (Dundas, 20 Aug 1799)view it online →
Research notes
Superseded: answered below [17 Sep 2026] WRITTEN as a new form: a short introduction, then a four-column timeline (date; what happened, as a heading with context; why it is here; source). A prelude to S042/S043/S044, centred on the Oosthuizen household and reached through the mother's van Wyk and van Tonder kin. Rows chosen for relevance, not age: the Cango caves (EVT-000330) and the Roode Klip forfeiture (EVT-000343) were left out as not on the road. Care taken: (1) Cornelis van Tonder of 1763 is Susanna Catharina's HALF-brother per De Villiers (born 1737 to the first wife); (2) the 1822 Vrolykheid holder is written as 'very probably' Ockert's eldest son, because LEAD-0213 is open and the 1824 roll writes Johanna, not Anna, Magdalena Strydom; (3) Two brothers were still in the Olifants ward in 1818 (SRC-644), so the farm's loss is not written as the family's departure; (4) Dolfs Kraal (SRC-655) is undated and so sits in the open questions, not the table. Frans also asked whether the page should carry a nodes-and-links view of how the people and places connect; not built yet.
[17 Sep 2026] v1.1: the 1760 row gains Appel's figure for how briefly loan places were held (SRC-658). Appel's article does not itself name Louis van WykM; the row's attribution to the blog stands.
[17 Sep 2026] v1.2: LEAD-0213 resolved on the 1822 and 1824 rolls, so the 'very probably' on Jacobus Johannes (PER-000208) on Vrolykheid is removed and the open question narrowed to the 'As.' wording (LEAD-0354). Adriaan van WykM and Sara FourieM (PER-002074/2075) added as the parents joining Louis and Susanna van WykM, and the people-and-places diagram ({{FIGURE:network}}, storynet.py) placed above the timeline.
[22 Sep 2026] v1.3: a July 1799 row and a section 'Ockert's letter, July 1799' giving the letter from Records of the Cape Colony vol. II (SRC-661) verbatim, in the contemporary English translation on both pages because the Dutch original is not held. verify_af's hedge test now ignores quotations, which it had been reading as our hedges.
The research behind this page, kept separate from it: dated working notes, open questions, and what is not yet settled.