Alberton 110 years old: In the beginning there were only farms

THE Voortrekkers Johan Georg (Org) Meyer and Hester Catharina Elizabeth (néé Mulder) came from Prince Albert with two wagons and made their way to the Transvaal in the early 1840’s.

Org sourced land and selected three farms, namely Klipriviersberg, Elandsfontein and Swartkoppies. The couple chose to live next to the Natal Spruit (today the open land on the corner of Hendrik Potgieter Street and Tenth Avenue, Alberton North).

Org asked another Voortrekker, Jacob Smith, to keep an eye on the farms, while he went back to Prince Albert to sell his farm there. He could not sell the land in the Cape and then decided to abandon it.

On his return, he decided to keep Smit as a neighbor and ceded Klipriviersberg to him.

When their son Johannes Petrus (Jan) Meyer was 13 years old in 1856, the family went back to visit their relatives in the Prince Albert district. During the return journey, Org died and was buried in Colesberg. The responsibility was on Jan’s shoulders to see the family safely back to the Transvaal. It rained heavily and they had to build rafts to pass over the rivers. The cattle had to be protected at night from wild animals and there was no dry wood for them to make fires.

In 1864 Jan Meyer married Christina Salomina Meyer (no relation) and set up house on land next to the Natalspruit, in the area now occupied by Alberton City.

Christina died on 31 July 1870 after the birth of their fourth daughter. She was buried in the farm cemetery that once lay next to the future Voortrekker Road. He re-purchased the farm Klipriviersberg for 500 pounds from Jacob’s Smit’s estate. In 1872 he married the widow Stephina Petronella Botha, born Strydom. The couple moved to Klipriviersberg.

The current farmhouse was erected in 1891 by the builder Kirton, who also built the Dutch Reformed Church in Heidelberg.

Jan Meyer’s widowed mother had remarried Abraham Viljoen. After Viljoen’s death in 1894, the farm Elandsfontein was divided between the Meyer children. Jan Meyer bought the areas now known as New Redruth, Randhart and Raceview. His brother Johan Georg (Org junior) bought the areas now known as Florentia and Verwoerd Park. The part of the farm that later became Alberton North, was given to the five Meyer daughters.

After the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, the Alberton Estate Syndicate of Germiston approached the Meyer family to buy land to establish a town, close enough to Johannesburg for work but outside the city. The land was sold for 20 000 pounds in 1904 and the new town named Alberton, after General Hennie Alberts, one of the members of the Syndicate.

DID YOU KNOW?

Although Alberton was established in 1904, it was only proclaimed a township in 1909.

Alberton boasts the only family cemetery within a traffic circle in South Africa.