John Parkin was the leader of an 1820 Settler Party which arrived aboard the Weymouth on the 15^th May 1820. A carpenter and wheelwright by training, John Parkin resided at Lower North Street, Exeter, Devon.

Shortly after settling at the area designated for the Devon party at Kariega, John Parkin relocated his family to Port Elizabeth where he acquired a huge farm, eponymously known as the Baaken’s River Farm. By the time of his death in 1856, the Parkins were one of the wealthiest families in town.

Main picture: John Parkin of Baakens River Farm

In 1818, Baakens River Farm was granted to John James Berry. Today this farm encompasses the suburbs of Newton Park, Sunridge Park, Fernglen and Fairview. The numerous members of the Berry family were well-known in the early days. John Berry’s sons, Richard John and Matthew, were personalities in their own right.

Parkin’s Party was a joint-stock party made up of small tradesmen and husbandmen. Although Parkin was its nominal leader, the party was organised and most of its correspondence with the Colonial Department conducted by another of its members, Robert Newcombe of Coombe Street, Exeter. Unlike many members of the Parker party in Ireland who had to trek long distances to Passage West, outside Cork, their embarkation port, the Parkin party hired a vessel to transport themselves and their baggage by sea to Portsmouth where they boarded HM Store Ship Weymouth.

 The Weymouth sailed on 7^th January 1820, reaching Table Bay at Cape Town on the 16^th April 1820. They would ultimately only reach Algoa Bay on the 15^th May 1820.

John Parkin was accompanied by his wife Elizabeth Abraham (nee Howard) and his first four children, William, John, Jane and Robert. Initially settling on the farm designated by the British Government to the Parkin party, some 14km south west of Bathurst in the Eastern Cape, he moved into Port Elizabeth soon afterwards during the early years of the town’s existence. He settled at Cradock Place. Interestingly his second wife was Maria Dorothea Ferreira whom he married on the 21^st January 1839. One wonders whether Maria was related to one of the original owners of Cradock Place, Thomas Igatius Ferreira, and the farm was then known as Ferreira’s Farm.  

In 1826, Baaken’s River Farm was acquired by John Parkin, quickly acquiring a large portfolio of the Port Elizabeth real estate. Today, not much (if any) of his original land remains in the Parkin name, with only a few items in the city remaining as an acknowledgement of his input into the beginnings of Port Elizabeth, namely Parkin Street in North End and a memorial plaque in a park in Stella Londt Drive. Fernglen, close to where his original homestead was located.

In 1840, John Parkin built a house on what was later Council owned land. He was known throughout Port Elizabeth and the surrounding districts as the owner of extensive properties, in addition to being a noted cattle farmer, meat merchant and huntsman. He owned much land along Main Street as far as Peel Street, and down Jetty Street around to Strand Street. John Parkin also owned a town house in Main Street, built from bricks carried as ballast in Weymouth.

On the 13^th October 1856, John Parkin suffered a heart attack in Main Street as he was on his way to buy another property. His second wife, Maria died shortly afterwards. The family story goes – possibly apocryphally – that when John Parkin died, he was holding R800 in his hand with which to buy the land on the corner of Main Street and St. Mary’s Terrace.

The farm, with its typically English cottage, was left to George Parkin, one of his 16 known children. According to Mr. C. Scott PARKIN, George PARKIN and later his son, George Scott PARKIN, lived on the farm until about 1912. Scott PARKIN’s widow continued to live there until approximately 1930 when it was bought by the late Mr. W.E. Londt.

John Parkin married twice and had 16 children, eight sons and 8 daughters by his first wife. He married his housekeeper after the death of his first wife, and, it is believed, had several more children. John Parkin’s second wife is buried in the South End Cemetery.

Upon his death in 1856, his estate was never settled as a number of his children had moved on from Port Elizabeth and some thought to be dead. In the years that followed, some of his property was purchased from the estate by the government of the day for in order to build the Port Elizabeth Railway Station, where it still stands today. In the 1960’s, a descendant of John Parkin, (N.P. Sellick) interested in determining who still had a claim to the estate, researched the Parkin genealogy in conjunction with the HSRC and wrote a book “John Parkin of Baakens River farm and his family, 1820 to 1970“, which became the basis for the family tree

John Parkin was originally buried on this farm. However when the suburb of Fernglen was established, his remains were exhumed and moved to St George’s cemetery in 1973. A memorial stone stands in the place of his grave in a park on the corner of Hackius and Janssens Avenues in Fernglen.

Mr. & Mrs. BOUCHER, who lived in the house with six of their 11 children, were there for 32 years. They pay R11 a month rental. “The house has a lot of charm and is typical of an English farm cottage,” said Mrs. M. RAINIER, a former Port Elizabeth historian. Mrs. RAINIER has made a study of the PARKIN family history.

Ballast
John PARKIN also owned a town house in Main Street, built from bricks carried as ballast in the Weymouth. According to Mrs. RAINIER, there are still traces of extensive terraced gardens laid out at the back of the farmhouse. John PARKIN, Frederick PARKIN, another of his sons, and George PARKIN’s baby daughter, Jane are buried in adjoining graves on a hilltop near the house.

Sellick on John Parkin

In his book on the Parkin family, Sellick states the following: It is tempting to accept the tradition that John Parkin, having discharged his duties to his party on the farm Devonshire, returned to Port Elizabeth and joined Frederick Korsten in his prosperous business at Cradock Place. However, it is on record6 that, shortly after the arrival of the settlers in 1820, Korsten disposed of his business at Cradock Place and retired. In 1826 the failure of the parties to whom he had leased Cradock Place led to his return and resumption of control. If John Parkin was one of the lessees, he prospered later. The first documentary evidence of John Parkin’s return to Port Elizabeth is his purchase of Baakens River Farm in 1826. The Deeds Office, Cape Town, records7 that the remainder of the farm Baakens River was sold to John Parkin on 14 December 1826 for the sum of £123.0.0. The remainder was 1859 morgen and 588 square roods in extent and was transferred to him by Deed of Transfer No. 103 dated 9 February 1848. No reason for the time gap in dates has come to light. In the map8 of sub-divisions of land around Port Elizabeth the farm Fairview of about 3000 morgens is evidently the Baakens River Farm referred to and John Parkin, his son George and grandson George Scott Parkin owned and occupied the western part of this farm. There can be no doubt about this, and it is strange that a meeting of resident householders 9 agreed to take the east bounds of Parkin’s farm and the S.E. bounds of Cradock Place as bounds of the commonage. Since the east bound of Fairview and the S.E. bound of Cradock Place are continuous it would appear that Parkin owned the eastern part of this farm as well.

Some light on John Parkin’ s activities is thrown by extracts from early copies of the Eastern Province Herald.10 In 1845 he is a trader offering a Bark 9 for sale or exchange for slaughter cattle. From time to time his name appears as a subscriber to funds and charities, one being for the relief of destitution in the Albany District, and he is a signatory to petitions in one of which11 Resident householders requested Mr. Wm. Lloyd, the resident magistrate, to appoint a day for a public meeting for the purpose of forming a municipality of Port Elizabeth (the municipality was formed in 1847). He gave notice12 “All persons found trespassing through Baakens River Farmyard with wagons, horses, etc., will be prosecuted according to law. The penalties of law will be incurred by all persons making the following openings – Erf No. 7 between Parkin’s and Maynard’s premises, Erf No. 13 between Warmington’s and Diesel’s premises, Erf No. 21 between Ring’s house and the Iron Store.” On 6 March 1848 John Parkin gave notice of his intention to return to England and advertised “that being about to leave for England, offers for sale, pair of Horses, etc.,” and later14 ” James Hall will hold a public sale on Monday 3rd in front of his office of Phaeton and Horse, the property of John Parkin.” Still later on 29 April 1848, a will was signed. Whether he went to England or not after all these preparations is not known but his last will,15 which he signed at Port Elizabeth in 1852, bequeathes Erf No. 20 purchased from Joseph Daniels on 28 August 1848 and two properties in Bird Street purchased from W.M. Harries on 21 March 1849. Whether these purchases were made by agents or not, he was certainly back in Port Elizabeth in May 185016 when his signature was appended to a report of the committee for revision of municipal affairs in Port Elizabeth.

During the early part of John’s residence at the Cape his wife, Elizabeth, bore him a further five children –

b6         George PARKIN, * Cape Colony, 20.7.1821,   t P.E.,   11.7.1901, x P.E., 10.10.J845, Mary HODSON, born SCOTT.

b7         Cradock PARKIN, * Cape Colony, 27.12.1823, t P.E., 3.4.1915,

x P.E., 5.4.1848, Elizabeth ADAMS.

b8         Charlotte PARKIN, * P.E., 11.9.1824, t P.E., 3.1.1905, x P.E., 10.10.1845, George WHITEHEAD.

b9         Isaac PARKIN, * P.E., c. 1827, t Krompoort, Cape, 8.8.1873, x P.E.,

29.1.1851, Emma JEFFERSON.

b!0       Frederick PARKIN, * c. 1829, t P.E, 28.8.1877.

John Parkin lost his first wife, how and when is unknown, and appears in the l840’s as the husband of Maria Dorothea Ferreira, said to have been his housekeeper, by whom he had four children.

al          John PARKIN, xx Maria Dorothea FERREIRA, t P.E., 9.6.1893.

b11     Maria Magdalena PARKIN, * c.1842, x P.E.,21.6.1860, Philip FROST.

bl2       Martha Suzanna PARKIN, * P.E., 12.11.1843, t P.E., 7.2.1926,

x P.E., 11.9.1862, Alfred Henry BOARD.

bl3        Alfred PARKIN, * P.E., 19.5.1845, t P.E., 12.9.1883, x P.E.,

20.6.1867, Elizabeth FORD.

b14      Thomas PARKIN, * Baakens River Farm, 20.6.1847, t London, 27.8.1907, x Uitenhage, 1879, Rebecca TUNBRIDGE. On the occasion of the sale of ”The Parkin Estate” a number of stories about John Parkin appeared in the local press.17 A daguerreotype portrait in the possession of Mrs. Freda Smith was reproduced together with photographs of the property and of the graves on Baakens River Farm in which John and his son Frederick were interred. It was said that he acquired the Parkin Estate (Erf No. 7) from Henry Nourse in 1837 in exchange for a property at the foot of Fort

Frederick on which he had been established for 17 years. The reason for the exchange was that Mr. Nourse was growing old and wished to live nearer to the fort for protection from Kaffir raids. It was also said that John Parkin built a house on the property on what became the corner of Strand and Peel Streets and lived there. A photograph of the house, then a garage, was reproduced. It was also said that John Parkin died of heart failure while in his carriage on the way to attend a sale of the ”Union Castle Corner” with four hundred pounds in his pocket. The first of these stories is ill-founded. It is on record18 that Henry Nourse died in Grahamstown on 16 December 1834 and it has been ascertained from the Deeds Office, Cape Town,19 that Erf No. 7 which was subsequently renumbered to Erf No. 1509 Port Elizabeth Central was originally granted to Henry Nourse by Deed of Grant dated 4 December 1820, Uitenhage Freeholds, Volume 2, No. 25.

The property was sold by the executors in the estate of the late Henry Nourse to John Parkin on 12 September 1835 for £326 and the property was transfer­ red to him by Deed of Transfer No. 78 dated 28 July 1837. The house in Strand Street was still standing in 1948 and when it was pulled down to be replaced by the ” Binnehuis” a well was found under the kitchen floor and some domestic utensils were recovered. These are now in the possession of Mr. Sinclair Parkin of Uitenhage. The house commonly said to have been John Parkin’s on Baakens River Farm lay in the valley between the modern Sunridge Park and Fern Glen. 20 There is a stream in the valley and beyond it, on the hillside, was a private cemetery with two slate-covered tombs.

One is engraved to the memory of John Parkin, Snr., who died on 13 October 1856, aged 69 years, 2 months; also, to a grandchild Jane Parkin, daughter of George Parkin, who died on 13 June 1849, aged 16 months, 14 days. The second tomb is inscribed to Frederick Parkin, who died on 28 August 1877, aged 48 years. In fact, John Parkin’s house was on high ground to the west of this valley. Mrs. Maureen Bowden 21 was sure of this – ”Aunt Sally pointed it out to me many times and said that she had gone there by cart or wagon in her youth. This house is still standing in part. In 1950 it was bought by a builder and remodelled and is now quite modern looking. At the time my mother and I went over it and he told us that it would not pay him to pull it down entirely; the walls were nearly 18 inches thick.” This is confirmed independently  by Mr. A.J. Scott-Parkin who writes -“John Parkin’s house, according to my father, was a double storey place on the ridge of what is now Sunridge Park (reconstructed and modernised it survives as the only double storey house in the ridge today); it was an unpretentious early Victorian house with a wooden balcony and as I remember looked like a large edition of the Donkin Street houses of today. The downstairs was one large room with a staircase rising from it to the upstairs. The ceiling of the downstairs room had huge beams and, according to my father, John Parkin in his cups would occasionally display his great strength by traversing the room from end to end hanging from the beams by his hands alone.”

The story of the private cemetery may be completed here. Almost the whole of Baakens River Farm has now been cut into residential plots and in sub-dividing Fern Glen the surveyors came upon the Parkin graves in a state of dilapidation. The matter was taken up by Mr. R.X. Parkin of Port Elizabeth who, after consulting members of the family, obtained authority for exhumation and the remains were reinterred under the original slate slabs in an extension of St. George’s Park Cemetery specially set aside for the purpose. Further as a result of representations by Mr. Parkin, the Port Elizabeth City Council has set aside an area within a stone’s throw of the original site of the graves on which a cairn will be erected recording the occupation of the farm by the Parkin family for over a century.

One might have expected an informative obituary in the press on the passing of John Parkin but all that appears is “While the young (reference to the death of two small children mentioned above) as well as the old are warned of the uncertainties of life by the above instances, another warning to the old  is sounded by the death, yesterday morning, of Mr. JOHN PARKIN, one of the oldest inhabitants of Port Elizabeth. Mr. Parkin had suffered for some time from acute rheumatism, but we believe relatives did not think his end was so near. Yet his days were numbered and yesterday morning he was rather suddenly carried off – the rheumatism having struck late (sic) the heart. Mr. Parkin leaves a widow and a large family to mourn their loss.” According to his death notice John Parkin was born in Topsham, Devonshire. There is no reference to parents. He was a landed proprietor married to Maria Dorothea Ferreira and died at his residence, Baakens River Farm, on 13 October 1856, aged 69 years, 11 months.

Destruction of Mr Parkin’s Flour Mill

The Grahamstown Journal records the destruction of Mr Paiken’s flour mill. The exact location was not specified and it is assumed that the report refers to Mr John Parkin.

On Monday the 13th inst [13^th January 1834] the flour mill of Mr. PARKINS, situated near Port Elizabeth, was completely consumed by fire. The premises was insured in the “South African Insurance Company” for £800 sterling. The fire appears to have originated under the following circumstances:- Some workmen had been occupied in the morning in fixing some iron bands upon the timbers for the purpose of attaching a saw mill to part of the machinery, and having put some wet clothes upon the hot iron, had left the place. It is supposed that in driving the bands on a spark must have flown from the iron and fallen unobserved on the lower part of the mill, perhaps among the flour-sacks, and thence communicated with the machinery. The fire commenced at about 11 o’clock in the forenoon, and at about half past three the premises were entirely consumed. 

Sources

Port Elizabeth: A Social Chronicle to the end of 1945 by Margaret Harradine (2004, Historical Society of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth)

Farmhouse stands for 130 years, (April 1970, EP Herald)

John Parkin of Baakens River farm and his family, 1820 to 1970 by NP Sellick (1975, HSRC)

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