Lodewyk Bothma

1802 – 1874 · Bothma line

Connection to the Koup

Held ground in this district: Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26) (1871~).

event An aardvark turns up the FIRST gold nugget on Spreeuwfontein - twenty years before the rush1871-08

Names

Baptismal name: Lodewyk
Given: Lodewyk
Surname: Bothma

The formal baptismal name and the name a person was actually called are both kept, and neither is derived from the other. Spelling drift between records is evidence, not noise.

Immediate family

Married: Elsje Jacoba Maritz (1813-1892) 26 January 1834
Children: Frans Stephanus Botma (1834-1908)

A life in the record

1802 born Born
26 January 1834 married Married Elsje Jacoba Maritz (1813-1892)
August 1871 event An aardvark turns up the FIRST gold nugget on Spreeuwfontein - twenty years before the rush
2½ oz, round, water-worn and encrusted with crystals, in the spoil of a burrow on Lodewyk Bothma's farm 50 km from Prince Albert. Young Bothma took it for a sheep dropping, kicked it aside, then pocketed it as a pretty stone for his mother; she thought it "queer" and it ended up on a cupboard. Sir R
about 1871 land Held it, Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26)
1874 died Died
1891 event Lodewyk Bothma lays out Gatsplaas, named for the hole the first nugget came from
He beat N.J. Gillet, who wanted to found a town called Gilletville. F Brazier developed the township; Jan Haak put up the first iron-and-wood building; Thomas Vinson a shop, a German firm a butchery, Cole of Cape Town a bakery, Dr Bastable a practice. Two shops, a hotel, a bottle store, barbers and

Ground they are on record on

Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26) held it · about 1871 to 1874

Stories

subject The Prince Albert gold rush

What we don't know

Neither parent is recorded, so this person is not attached to the tree above them.

A sourced gap beats an unsourced fill. These are the open questions on this person, stated rather than papered over.

Sources

"The Prince Albert goldfields, 1891" Arid Areas Research and DevelopmentRose's Roundup
"The Karoo's mini gold bonanza" Engineering News / Mining Weekly21 Feb 2014
Rose Willis & Doreen Atkinson, "Zeekoegat: Explorations in the Koup Karoo" (2022) Karoo Development Foundation38pp cameo

Research notes

[SRC-068] Found the first nugget in 1871 as a YOUNG BOY on Spreeuwfontein - he took it for a sheep dropping, kicked it aside, then carried it home as a pretty stone. He sold it to Samuel "Saamie" Luttig for £5.50. Later planned the village of GATSPLAAS on the farm, named for the hole the first nugget came out of. CORRECTION: earlier notes had him simply as the farm owner at the time of the find.

[FS L6L7-5PZ, 9 Aug 2026] DATED, AND THE DATES SPLIT THIS ROW IN TWO. Lodewyk BothmaH was born in 1802 and died in 1874, married ELSJE JACOBA MARITZ (PER-001605) at Worcester on 26 January 1834, and was SIXTY-NINE in 1871. He cannot be the young boy who kicked the first nugget aside. His grandson and namesake LODEWYK BOTMA (PER-001606), eldest son of Frans Stephanus, was fifteen that year and is the likely finder. This row now holds the grandfather; the boy is PER-001606. [TO VERIFY] which of them laid out the village.

These are working notes, not finished prose: they carry the reasoning, the corrections and the things still marked to verify. They are kept here so the page itself can read as what is known.

Open questions

Is the ruin on Spreeufontein Portion 1 a gold-rush building, and are the workings above it diggings? priority 2 · LEAD-0121
Two photographs of 29 March 2024 carry real device coordinates on Spreeufontein Portion 1: a collapsed dry-stone building at -32.969131, 22.290139 (855 m) and broken rock and spoil 232 m south and 74 m higher at -32.971036, 22.289128 (929 m). Do either belong to the 1891 rush, or to Gatsplaas, or to ordinary farming?

What would settle it Any contemporary map or report locating the diggings or the village; or a visit recording the ruin's plan, dimensions and any datable material - a fireplace, window openings, mortar, bottle glass, a dump. [14 Aug 2026] TWO CALL NUMBERS NOW ANSWER THE FIRST HALF OF THIS: CCP1/2/1/78 ref A12 for 1891 and CCP1/2/1/23 ref A30 for 1871. What they will not give is a coordinate for the ruin in IMG-0010; only a visit or a map does that.

What the record is missing

30 years, and the ground changes hands to nobody we can follow first order · B1 succession
On Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26), Cornelis Floris Johannes MeyerM is the last owner recorded from 1841-04-15, and the next entry is Lodewyk BothmaH from 1871~, 30 years later, with no person in common. No document records the handover at all.

What would settle it The Deeds Office transfer register for this farm between 1841 and 1871. A transfer names its predecessor in title, so one deed closes the whole gap.
The record stops in 1874 and never resumes second order · B2 trail-ends
Spreeuw Fontein & Toornits Kraal (Spreeufontein No. 26) was worked as far as 1874, with Lodewyk BothmaH the last owner on record. 152 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.

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.

Elders

FamilySearch profile L6L7-5PZ