← The land

1841

The fifteenth of April 1841

One day the ground in this district was held by permission, and the next it was property. These are the same farms, a year apart.

Before the grants no farm here had a surveyed boundary. A loan farm was a place and a water source, and the edges came with the survey - so 1840 is drawn as points and 1841 as ground. The shapes are the modern cadastre, which is the closest this record can come to the lines the grants drew.

What changed in a day

In 1840 this record can name a holder on 8 of the district parcels it can place; in 1841 on 16. The difference is not that the district filled up. It is that a survey turned occupation into title, and a title has a name on it.

FarmHeld in 1841 byTenure
Klaarstroom No. 184 (Klaarstroom A) Christian Hatting Senior Perpetual Quitrent
Klein Sleutlefontein No. 127 not named here Perpetual Quitrent
Rietkuil No. 119 (Kouka) Pieter Johannes Swanepoel (b6c5d7) quitrent
Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26) Cornelis Floris Johannes Meyer Perpetual Quitrent
Varsche Fontein Charl du Toit Perpetual Quitrent
Vrolikheid Jacobus Johannes Oosthuisen (Almero's son) Perpetual Quitrent
Wit Plaats (Vrolikheid No. 177 Ptn 1) N. Hitge Perpetual Quitrent
Wolwekraal No. 17 Johannes Hendrik Venter quitrent

This page counts only parcels this project can put on a map, so it is a floor and not a total. A farm with no coordinate gets no mark, the same rule the main map follows: a wrong pin is worse than a missing one.

The grant day has its own story