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Source SRC-010

Rose Willis and Doreen Atkinson, with Judy Maguire and Bruce Rubidge, "Klaarstroom: Ancient place of clear waters" (Karoo Cameos, 2021)

local history · consulted 2026-07-31

Type
local history
Repository
Karoo Development Foundation, Karoo Cameos
Reference
Karoo Cameos, 2021
Consulted
2026-07-31

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The citation as it was given

Klaarstroom local history; founding on Oosthuizen land | [31 Jul 2026] READ IN FULL for the first time; it had been in the model unreferenced. Author is ROSE WILLIS (the Zeekoegat cameo is Willis & Atkinson; this one is Willis alone). What it holds for this project: the loan farm De Claar Stroom ran FROM MIDDELWATER TO VROLIKHEID; the town was surveyed after Meiringspoort opened in 1858, 27 erven, first sold 4 Aug 1860; the ground was owned by PETRUS OOSTHUIZEN and the village was called PETERSBURG 'mainly as a tribute' to him; he was helped by GEROME MARINCOWITZ - our Gerolm, PER-000020 - and a Worcester man named Benecke; Petrus d. 2 Jan 1876 aged 77, two marriages, twenty-one children. It also records the first flood closing the pass in 1885 with 50 wagons stranded, and Tollie Marincowitz and his son Graham still distilling witblits on Vrolykheid. TERTIARY - a popular local history with no citations. Everything taken from it is [TO VERIFY] against registers and the deeds office. | [31 Jul 2026] THE PDF IS NOW HELD IN THE REPO and the whole 42 pages read. Authorship corrected again: Rose Willis AND Doreen Atkinson, with Judy Maguire and Bruce Rubidge; series editor Atkinson. MY OWN ERROR, CORRECTED: the Pitzer/Geldenhuys marriages, the 21 children and the death on 2 Jan 1876 belong to PETRUS JOHANNES MEIRING, not to Petrus Oosthuizen - five pages apart in the document, joined by me in a text extraction. See PER-000505. WHAT THE CAMEO CLAIMS THAT THIS MODEL CAN CHECK, and none of it has been written into the model - see LEAD-0032: (a) 'The story of Klaarstroom began when the first farm in this area was granted in 1777' - earlier than anything we hold; our earliest is the 1825 Bloemendaal survey. (b) 'Among the first land buyers were Frans Adriaan Swemmer, Piet Classen, P H du Plessis and GEROME MARINCOWITZ, WHO IN 1821 BUILT the majestic Cape Dutch homestead on the farm VROLIKHEID.' This CONTRADICTS the model outright: our Gerolm Marincowitz (PER-000020) was born in Trieste on 11 Feb 1805 and arrived in 1838 - sixteen years old and not in the country in 1821. Either the date is wrong, or the builder is a different Marincowitz. (c) 'In 1935, the farm owner, PIET OOSTHUIZEN renamed a portion of the farm [BLOEMENDAL] as SCHEEPERSRUS' - Bloemendaal is PAR-000093, filed today, and we hold no owner for it. (d) The 1901 skirmish at REMHOOGTE: Boer rebel JOHANNES KLEU shot and died there; the owner 'R du Plessis' brought him in; 'Miemie du Plessis, a little girl of ten' remembered it. Kleu and Klueplaas are already in this model. (e) 'The original farmhouse at MIDDELWATER ... also belongs to the KLUE family' - we hold no modern Middelwater owner. (f) GIDEONSHOOP, of the Langenhoven love story, 'today is the DE AAP GUEST FARM' - which names 'The Ape' of the 1833 Klein Valie and Wilgemond diagrams (LEAD-0026), and Gideons Hoop is Klein Valie portion 182/4 on the 1919 verso (SRC-150). (g) Meiringspoort: campaigned for by Meiring; ridden in 1854 by John Charles Molteno with Charles Pritchard, Andrew Geddes Bain and son Thomas, who preferred Toorwaterpoort; work began 1856; initial work by THOMAS J MELLVILLE, Sub-Inspector of Roads for George, with 93 labourers, later replaced by Adam de Smidt; opened 3 MARCH 1858 with 300 mounted men and 50 coaches; 22 km, 25 river crossings, 223 days. Melville is a surveyor name already in this model (LEAD-0028). (h) By June 1870 more than a million kilograms of wool had gone through the poort to Mossel Bay. First flood 1885 stranded 50 wagons; Thomas Bain repaired it, reopened 1886. (i) Scheepers's commando rode into Klaarstroom 1 Feb 1901 under Lt FANIE SWANEPOEL; escaped north on 5 Feb via Boesmanskloof, SLEUTELFONTEIN and BOTTERSKRAAL to ZEEKOEGAT on 7 Feb - four farms in this model. (j) ROY OOSTHUIZEN of SWARTSKRAAL, the palaeontologist of STO-0004: Dwykaselachus oosthuizeni, a shark-like fish of c.280 Ma, CT-scanned by Dr Robert Gess in 1993, published in Nature 4 Jan 2017 (Coates et al., doi:10.1038/nature20806). ITS OWN SOURCES worth chasing: HELENA MARINCOWITZ, 'Klaarstroom' and 'Prince Albert en die Anglo-Boere Oorlog 1899-1902' - a Marincowitz writing the district's history; and JUDY MAGUIRE, 'Prince Albert and the Anglo Boer War: The Affair at Wolwekraal, Remhoogte', Prince Albert Museum 2021 - Wolwekraal is PAR-000054. | [31 Jul 2026] TIER 1 AND 2 NOW WRITTEN IN, each tagged TERTIARY / TO VERIFY at the point of use: Meiringspoort's chronology (EVT-000209 to 211), the 1901 raid and the affair at Remhoogte (EVT-000212/213), Petrus Johannes Meiring (PER-000517) and Johannes Kleu (PER-000518), and notes on PAR-000001, PAR-000068, PAR-000088, PAR-000093 and PLC-000003. STILL NOT WRITTEN IN, deliberately: the claim that Gerome Marincowitz BUILT THE VROLYKHEID HOMESTEAD IN 1821, which contradicts our sourced Trieste birth of 1805 and arrival of 1838. See LEAD-0032.

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.

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