Up until the late 1700s, this area was teaming with wild game with large herds of buffaloes abounding. Various explorers and adventurers attested to the fact that this part of the country once boasted incredibly dense populations of most of the species encountered in South Africa. Until recently, none of these animals could be seen in this area anymore. Now, a recently opened game park has put this to rights. Originally the area referred to as Kragga Kamma extended from the Van Stadens River across to the headwaters of the Baakens River but now only encompasses a fraction of this area.

Main picture: The focal point of Kragga Kamma is the homestead of Henry Bailey Christian from 1889 to 1892 

Origin of the name and early history
The name Kragga Kamma is of Khoikhoi origin and stems from the Gonoqua tribe. Its earliest form it was called // Kraxa/kamma (// kara – meaning pebbles in the river and kamma being a corruption of the Khoi word // gami – meaning water). It is also surmised that it might have meant “fresh” or “sweet” water, comparing the valuable fresh water lake in the area with the salt pans some distance away.

The Age of the Explorer
Early explorers all made mention of Kragga Kamma during their travels. Usually it was in positive terms referring to vast herds of buffalos as well as the lush vegetation, streams and lakes.

The fact that water was to be found at a given locality was of utmost importance in a country where it was so sparsely distributed. In the 1700’s the whole area between the Van Staden’s River and the headwaters of the Baakens River was known as “Kragga Kamma” (now restricted to the land between Surrey Hills and Kabega).

During the eighteenth century, numerous travellers passed through Kragga Kamma. Only of the early explorers was August Friedrich Beutler who was the leader of the first official exploration of the Eastern Cape ordered by the Cape Governor, Ryk Tulbagh in 1752. While passing through Kragga Kamma they encountered two stranded sailors from the French sloop La Necessaire which together with other vessels from Mauritius, was examining the south-east coast. She anchored in the Bay and a boat came ashore for water. In the process, the boat overturned and as an imminent storm had compelled the sloop to abandon the men ashore, these men realising their predicament, made the best of the situation and set off by foot for Cape Town, a distance of 748 kms.

(1752) -“Cracha Camma”; the Swedes Thunberg (1773), and Sparrman (1775) who mentions “passing through several dales or bogs of different sizes just south of Kraggakamma”;  Swellengrebel (1776) – “Kraggakamma”; and governors Van Plettenberg (1778), Paterson (1779) – “Krakakamma”; and Sir John Barrow (1797).  The area was described as an excellent extent of land between the Van Staden’s and Swartkops Rivers.

The route followed by the travellers was along a line from the Gamtoos River, through the Van Staden’s River to the “seashore” in Algoa Bay, there being no settlement at Port Elizabeth at that time. Furthermore Fort Frederick was only built by the British in 1799.

First settlers
The first mention of human settlement was made in 1775 by Anders Sparrman. He wrote of plains enclosed by a thick wood and mentioned a Potgieter family at Kragga Kamma as well as Theunis Botha. He too spoke of thousands of buffaloes. According to the Gazetteer by 1790 Adolph Landman was on the farm. Bennie notes that by 1790 it is recorded that farms in existence in the area included those of Cornelius Kok at Kragga Kamma and Adolf Landman and Theunis Botha at Buffelsfontein. Interestingly in 1797 John Barrow mentions that the most common tree was yellowwood but there were also ironwood and assegaaihout.

The age of settlement
In 1843 three-quarters of the farm, Kragga Kamma, covering 2202 morgen, which included the lake, was transferred to William Titterton and the remaining quarter to John Owen Smith. According to CJ Skead’s Gazetteer, it notes that during the Frontier War of 1846 “The Kragga Kamma area was invaded by a band of Xhosa.” At about this time, John Owen Smith brought out a group of Irish settlers to work for him at Kragga Kamma. Another group of Irish Settlers associated with the Flanagan family, settled at Goedmoedsfontein. They had been compelled to emigrate due to the deadly Irish Potato Famine ravaging the country. J.O. Smith’s daughter, Mary Ann, married Henry Bailey Christian

At which point the main house on the property was erected cannot be ascertained. Notwithstanding that there must have been form of building structure albeit rudimentary from 1775, Sometime between 1843 and 1870 the structure that is now known as Kragga Kamma, or KK House to the Clark family, was built. In 1874 the homestead in the upper quarter became a country resort when Smith’s son-in-law HB Christian leased it to William Brockett.

William Titterton owned 2202 morgen at Kragga Kamma which included the lake but died on the 3rd July 1870 aged 66. His son, Thomas William Titterton, continued to`farm there most successfully but was killed in October 1881 aged 36, when, after starting a race at Fairview, a horse cannonaded into him. The farm was purchased by H.B. Christian, who already owned the adjoining land.

On the 20th June 1882, HB Christian purchased Titterton’s portion of KK Farm for £8,100. During the Anglo Boer War portion of this farm was leased to the Military for use as a Remount Centre at which mules and cobs could recoup and recover after an arduous voyage to the Cape during which many horses succumbed. The farm [KK] remained in the Christian family until it was purchased by Charlie Clark on the 27th October 1932 after the death of Owen Smith Christian on 16 May 1932. Mr Charlie Clerk had originally come from England to work for Mr. H.B. Christian who owned Kragga Kamma. On the top western side there was a very large house which had originally served as an hotel. In 1925, HRH, the Prince of Wales, later the Duke of Windsor, and future King Edward VIII, had lunched there.

Well-known botanist, William John Burchell’s field notes recorded finding interesting specimens at “Krakakamma” – near the farm-house in  31/1/1814”. This was the property of Daniel Potgieter, just beyond Van Staden’s River. After 1814 travellers no longer mentioned Kraggakamma, as Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage had become developed towns and it was no longer a point of reference.

Nooitgedacht
In 1845 Mary and John Niblett settled on the farm now called Theescombe in Kragga Kamma, the original dwelling of the old loan-farm Nooitgedacht (only about 7 miles from Port Elizabeth). It was originally owned at the end of the 18th Century by Cornelius van Rooyen, a renowned frontier fighter. The farm was later in the possession of the Frames family and after them, Bob Parker Nance.

In the midst of war
Even though Port Elizabeth itself never experienced the blight of war, Kragga Kamma certainly did. The ‘farms’ in the district were subject to invasions by the Xhosa and the khoikhoi on two occasions. The first of these two incursions occurred in 1799 during the 3rd Frontier War. While van der Kemp ministered to slaves and khoi at Graaff Reinet, he requested permission to resettle near to the recently constructed Fort Frederick. Instead the British authorities granted them the use of an unoccupied loan farm in the Kragga Kamma area known as Botha’s Place. The settlement was raided by both Xhosa and Boer raiding parties. With their cattle stolen, van der Kemp and his followers took refuge at Fort Frederick and the abandoned buildings were raised to the ground by a trekboer commando. In his journal, Van Reenen gives a list of 470 farms from the Langkloof and Gamtoos River to the Swartkops River that were “burnt, destroyed and deserted”.

Xhosa invasion of 1846
Apart from minor amendments, this section is a verbatim account by Samuel Reed of his family’s experiences when the Xhosa invaded Kragga Kamma in 1846 during The War of the Axe.

We Settlers had an abundance of losses and hardships. In 1846 I owned a Blacksmith Shop and Wagon Maker’s Establishment at Kragga Kamma. I was ordered to the front with my brother George, who was the Wagon Maker, leaving 6 new wagons in the shop, 50 horses and mares and about 170 head of cattle. Leaving our wives and children on the farm, we had hardly got to the Fish River when the enemy forced our women to evacuate the area, burnt everything and drove all our stock away. We only arrived back home after 6 months penniless. Despite this, we succeeded in organising another wagon and oxen, managed to plough the land, and got the shop started again. Wagon oxen were commandeered. My wife and 2 children went to Grahams Town with 20 other wagons. On the Addo road, the enemy stole all the oxen. My wife and children were obliged to walk back to Kragga Kamma almost dead from fatigue and hardship. No person of today can have any conception what those brave pioneers, the 1820 Settlers went through. Besides the enemy, we had to contend with wolves, [presumably hyenas], jackals, wild dogs and tigers [presumably leopards] with no poison. Every beast not in a good kraal was one less by the next morning. Horse sickness started in October 1854.

By 1849 it belonged to John Owen Smith and William Titterton. Henry Bailey Christian, who was in business with his father-in-law, J Owen Smith, and the first Vice Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Port Elizabeth, owned and farmed Kragga Kamma from c1860 onwards. He was also involved with the Harbour Board, Horse Racing, the Jockey Club and the Agricultural Society. It was only after Titterton’s death in 1881 that H.B. Christian, Smith’s son-in-law that Henry Christian purchased William Titterton’s half share. The old homestead, also known as Lake Farm, was built of stone. .

Remount Centre
From 1899 mules and cobs arriving by ship at Port Elizabeth for use in the Anglo-Boer War were taken to H B Christian’s farm at Kragga Kamma for a time before being sent inland as part of the war effort (hence the carving on the tree at Farm 23 Cragga Kamma). The objective of this exercise was to prepare these animals for the rigors of warfare

In the 1930’s the family of H B Christian sold the farm when the Cape of Good Hope Bank failed and Charles Clark of Buffelsfontein, and his brothers, bought parts of Hillside, The Gums and The Flats. Mrs Bunny Clark recalls going to Kragga Kamma in 1946. The old homestead on the property reputedly had gardens that rivalled St George’s Park. The floods of 1968 caused huge damage as an alluvial stream in the garden compounded matters. The farm ran the “Kragga Kamma Ayrshire Dairies” and delivered milk to the public. 

Was it a church, a school or a storeroom?
Anybody driving westward along Kragga Kamma Road towards Cows’ Corner, would have noticed the husk of a burnt-out building protruding through the trees. Thanks to Erica Clark, I have now been enlightened about its origins. The farm, Goedemoedsfontein, on which the building is erected, has been owned by the Flanagan family since 1832. Mr JJ Flanagan donated the land for the erection of a church which was designed by George Storey. The family itself built the church which opened its doors on the 15^th October 1877.

Like the Beckley family church at Draaifontein, this church never had a resident priest. Instead the incumbent priest at St Augustine’s Church in central Port Elizabeth would periodically pay a working visit on horseback or a wagon. Often this would entail  an overnight stay presumably at the Flanagan’s household.

Later the church was converted into a school under the tutelage of the teacher, Miss Weisbekker. The school was subsequently relocated to a building to area just above Cow’s Corner known as Spyskop. At the point, the former church was converted once again. This time into a storeroom by the father and uncles of James Flanagan. The place of honour when to the motorbikes. More lowly items such as lucerne, animal feed and farm implements as well as the original pews were stored beside the bikes. This storeroom met its end in the 1960s when a group of locals attempted to rob a beehive in one of the vents above the door. Instead they set the building alight and in the ensuing mayhem escaped.  Today only shards of this once proud and historic building are still standing

Family connection
In this case, the main connections are on the distaff side of of the family. One of my mother’s friends, before she was married, was one of the Clark girls, Rona. In addition, her brother Redvers Dix-Peek, married Doreen Clark and acquired a owned a small holding, Dixie, in the main Kragga Kamma Road.

Sources
Heritage Impact Assessment by Jennie Bennie: Herwww.sahra.org.za/sahris/sites/default/files/…/9-2-073-0001-20080904-JB_0.pdf
The Social Chronicle of Port Elizabeth up to1945 by Harradine, Margaret. )1996 Port Elizabeth E. H. Walton Packaging (Pty) Ltd Port Elizabeth South Africa)

Panorama by E.K. Lorimer [Cape Town, Balkema, 1971]
Kragga Kamma – Origin of the name and early history by L.F. Maingard [1961, Africana Notes and News]
South African Place Names by Reverend Charles Pettman [ Lowry Publishers Johannesburg]
The Society Outing to Farms in the Kragga Kama Region by Helene Scott [1966, Looking Back Vol 6]
The ALGOA Gazetteer : Rural Place names in the NINE East Cape districts of Albany, Alexandria, Bathurst, Humansdorp, Port Elizabeth, Steytlerville, Uitenhage, Uniondale (in part), and Willowmore … revised edition by C.J. Skead [2004, Port Elizabeth, Bluecliff Publishing]
Looking Back, 1980 Vol 20:22, 26
Odd Spot Kragga Kamma (EP Herald 1946 May 4)
“Steyr served family well” by Gavin James Flanagan (EP Herald 24 April Unknown)

Addendum
The farm “Kragga Kamma” by M Harradine 2014

Correctly speaking, the Khoi name “Kragga Kamma” refers to the lake on the farm and means “sweet water”- a freshwater lake compared with the salt pans in this area. Correctly described as an “endorheic” lake, one with no outflow, Kragga Kamma has been a landmark since time immemorial and by the middle 1700s (as on Friderici’s map) the name was used to refer to the entire promontory between the Zwartkops and van Stadens rivers. Historically it is one of the most important places in our area.

1752: Two stranded sailors from the French sloop “La Necessaire” met Ensign Beutler’s party at Kragga Kamma. August Friedrich Beutler was leader of the first official exploration of the eastern Cape, ordered by Governor Ryk Tulbagh. DEIC possessional beacons were set up.

1773: Swedish botanist Carl Pehr Thunberg was here and wrote of buffaloes, elephants, two-horned rhinoceroses, striped horses, asses (quaggas), several kinds of goats (buck) especially large herds of hartebeest, and lions.

1775: The Swedish traveller Anders Sparrman referred to the farm Buffelsfontein “geleegen tusschen de Kragga Kamma en ’sComps Baaken. He commented on the thousands of buffalo.

1779: Botanist William Paterson was near here and wrote of the “numerous herds of the animals peculiar to this country”: eland, quagga, zebra, hartebeest, and also hippos.

1776: JJ Kok of Zeekoei Rivier registered “de Kragga Kamma gelegen over de Gamtouwsrivier”.

1799-1816+: Adolph Landman farming here. In 1816 the farm was surveyed for the change in the system of land tenure from opgaaf to quitrent and officially granted to Landman on 20 June. In 1854 the building of JO Smith’s schooner “Shrimp” was started at “Landman’s Lake”.

1820: 26 May. Sophie Pigot, aged fifteen, in her diary wrote about a two-day picnic to Chelsea by wagon during which she and little Frederick Phillips “walked round the shore of the lake and saw the garden and waterfall, all very beautiful indeed”. They walked two-and-a half miles in twenty-five minutes, and she got her “feet wet a little”. Sophie’s father, Major George Pigot, was a retired officer of Dragoons and while his party of settlers was waiting to be taken inland, they were entertained by the officers at the Fort.

1835: Sold 20 July in the estate of the late widow Mrs JC Vogel. Catharina Landman was married to Jan Christiaan Vogel.

1838: 4 April. Elizabeth Abraham (Howard), wife of John Parkin, died aged forty-nine years, and was buried at Kragga Kamma. The Parkins were farming at Baakensrivier, and why she died away from home and was not buried in the cemetery there is not known. According to the published story of the family, the author did not know where or when Elizabeth had died.

1843: June 8. Three quarters of the farm was transferred to William Titterton and one quarter to merchant John Owen Smith – one of the town’s most important and valuable citizens. One writer stated he might “almost be termed its founder”.

1847: John Owen Smith brought out a group of Irish settlers to work for him. Rodger Flanagan and his family lived on the farm and later owned part of Draaifontein and Goedemoedsfontein.

1847: James Glen was living here. On 18 January 1847 his third son, George, aged 13 years and 7 months, was drowned while crossing Klaas Niemand’s Lake and buried on the farm. There were several generations of Nicolaas Niemands, and one gave his name to a small farm, Klaas Niemand’s River, as well as to the quite separate stream and lake on Kragga Kamma and was presumably farming on both at different times.

1849: The Field Cornetcy lists published in the “Cape Government Gazette” show the farm owned by William Titterton and John Owen Smith.

1863: 25 December. John Deakin, aged 25, drowned in the lake and was buried on the farm. However, there was mystery surrounding his death: he had financial troubles, was a strong swimmer and had come out to shoot duck accompanied by his chief clerk with a heavy sack. The clerk reported him missing, brought a coffin to the scene and waited by the water. He then announced that he had found the body and nailed it in the coffin (perhaps containing a sheep) and the burial proceeded. Sometime later Dr Frederick Ensor came upon a grave in Golders Green Cemetery in London with an inscription to “John Deakin late of Port Elizabeth, South Africa”. (The graves are on what became known as Trig Farm).

1868: According to the voters’ register, men on the farm were: W Titterton, Richard Wheldon, S Pearce, A Padden, John Pittaway. There have always been several houses here, some still in use, but altered and modernised.

1870: 3 July. William Titterton, aged 66, died after a wagon passed over him, breaking his ribs and causing internal injuries. His son, Thomas William, continued to run the farm. The family had arrived in Table Bay in 1819 and later most moved to the Eastern Cape.

1874: 28 August. Henry Bailey Christian, the son-in-law of JO Smith and inheritor of the farm, offered the homestead to let as he was leaving for England. The house was described as being of stone, surrounded on three sides by a stoep and verandah twelve feet wide, with three entertaining rooms, seven bedrooms etc. It is not known exactly when this house was built. The stone is thought to have come from the farm Betshanger. Next door is an older home where the owners would have lived at first.

1874: 1 October: William Brockett opened a fashionable country hotel in the stone house. He was still there in 1886. He and his family had come out in 1861 on the “Rajasthan”, his occupation given as farm bailiff.

1877: 16 June. Tenders were called for to build and complete a multi-denominational schoolhouse at Kragga Kamma. Designed by Charles Storey, it was opened on 15 October and was actually on Goedemoedsfontein, on land given by JJ Flanagan, but financially supported by HB Christian. Today it is a ruin, but it was a familiar sight to all driving on the country road. Local artists all seem to have painted it, and because of its secular gothic windows is now usually said to have been a church.

1881: 18 August. TW Titterton was killed at Fairview Racecourse, being run down by a horse after starting a race. He was only 36 years old and known as an “enterprising” and successful farmer. There is a tablet in his memory in St Paul’s Church. He was buried in St Mary’s cemetery and left five children, the youngest only a year old.

1882: 20 June. HB Christian bought Titterton’s part of Kragga Kamma for £8100 and the farm remained in the family until 1932. The advertisement for the sale described the farm as “the best agricultural and pastoral farm in Africa” and listed “extensive rich garden ground, vast productive ploughed lands, unlimited pasturage for large and small cattle, dense timber forests, abundant streams and pools, a perpetual lake, several complete homesteads, an inexhaustible supply of limestone and the loveliest scenery”.

1899 -1902: The farm (presumably a part of it) was leased by the Military for quartering mules and cobs during the South African War. On arrival here, after their long journey by sea, horses and mules were allowed a period of rest before being sent by train to the war zones.

1910/1911: Publication of “Cape Colony: its history, commerce, industries and resources”. This splendid book includes Kragga Kamma among the farms it describes in detail and with photographs. The book lists Friesland cattle, ostriches, oats, barley, wheat, mealies, mangolds, rape, lucerne, ostrich food (tares, vetches and lupins), 20 acres of wattle and sisal as products of the farm.

1913: The farm was occupied by Owen Smith Christian and his son, Jack Owen.

1932: 16 May. The death of Owen Smith Christian.

1932: 27 October. The sale of Kragga Kamma in the Christian Estate, divided into 6 lots. 1. Lakeside with the homestead of Jack Christian, sold to W Fuchs. 2. Hillside, sold to EC Clark. 3. The Gums, or Kragga Kamma Tea Garden, sold to CW Clark. 4. The Camp, sold to HE Clark. 5. The Flats, sold to CW Clark. 6. Kragga Kamma with the old homestead of stone, sold to CW Clark.

1934: An illustrated advertisement for the Lake Farm Hotel, including the lake and the tea garden.

1935: The Eastern Province Annual included pictures of the Lake Farmhouse.

1936+: January. The Kragga Kamma Circuit Tourist Trophy (TT) motor bike races, starting and finishing at Greenbushes.

1944: A photo published shows the lake to be a vast body of water. In the 1950s the tea garden was a popular destination for Sunday afternoon “drives”. After tea and scones, my parents would park near the lake while I collected some of the hundreds of tadpoles in a tin – to study, before putting them back and going home.

1984 to 1989: The “EP Herald” and “Weekend Post” printed articles on the drought and the disappearing lake, which became a small pond. Besides the drought, there were reports of excessive irrigation by those residents with the right to use the water, in particular a grass-growing company. The birds, including three pairs of fish eagles, had gone and there was no more fishing for bass.

2000+: Flooding in the Kragga Kamma area saw the lake overflow and roads become impassable. Part of the Seaview Road became a lake in itself.

Note: This farm is not the Lake Farm. This house is concealed from the Kragga Kamma Road. The turnoff is opposite the Antique Sale Farm just past the Lake Farm turnoff. There is a little dirt driveway but originally the whole farm stretched from the lake, across the Kragga Kamma Road and up past the little school ruin as far as “Rest A While” tearoom.