Korsten Archives - The Casual Observer

Port Elizabeth of Yore: Frederick Korsten-Sealing their Fate

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 20 December 2024 0 Comment

Within several years of the first permit for the slaughter of seals in Algoa Bay being issued, the seal population on St Croix island was exterminated. Steadily the seals on adjacent islands followed their fate until it was only the seals resident on Black Rocks near Bird Island which remained. This colony would be the only one to survive and even today it is the only island or outcrop populated with a colony of seals.

This is the story of the slaughter of the Algoa Bay seal population until it collapsed, except on Black Rock, never to regenerate. The only plausible explanation for this is that the waters around the Black Rock outcrop were too treacherous for the seal hunters to ply their trade there. In fact, the seas are so treacherous that many seals die in their endeavours to reach their patch of rock.

Main picture: Islands and outcrops on which seals used to reside

Port Elizabeth of Yore: Cradock Place – A golden past obliterated

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 4 December 2024 0 Comment

In establishing Cradock Place, Frederick Korsten broke the template for the development of a new town. Instead of rough-hewn dwellings gently suffusing an area until steady increments in wealth enabled the increasingly wealthy elite to build houses of distinction, Cradock Place dispensed with these steps. Instead Korsten built a huge integrated enterprise which encompassed all the processes in producing salted beef. Attached to it was a majestic home on a par with the best homes in the Mother City. Korsten even owned a ship, the 500-ton Helena, to transport the finished product to its final destination being the British garrison on Mauritius.

The house was destroyed in a malicious arson attack on the 13^th March 1909 whereas the impressive mill was lost due to lack of maintenance and repairs by a parsimonious town council detached from saving Por Elizabeth’s heritage.

Instead of Korsten and Cradock Place being revered in South Africa as the epitome of development, and acknowledgement of Korsten’s role in its establishment, both largely remain unknown by the majority of residents over 200 years later.

Main picture: Cradock Place before the fire of 13 March 1909. Originally the farm Papenkuilsfontein, it was the home of Frederick Korsten from 1812.

Port Elizabeth of Yore: The Poor White Problem – 1920 to 1960

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 19 April 2024 0 Comment

Port Elizabeth has experienced phenomenal population growth spurts on a two occasions: first the Afrikaner influx and relocation from the platteland and then there was the migration of the Blacks. The consequences of unbridled migration for both communities were catastrophic in terms of nutrition, accommodation and general living conditions. Being English speaking and white to boot, I was blissfully unaware of the devastation, havoc and suffering that this enormous influx created until much later in life.

In 1904, immediately after the Anglo Boer War, the Afrikaner was a scare commodity in Port Elizabeth. Representing roughly 3.9% of the white population, they were virtually a ghost community lacking Afrikaans schools and churches. By 1960, this situation had been reversed with the Afrikaans schools and churches – numbering 13 NG churches – being operational.

The focus of this blog is white poverty as a consequence of over-rapid population growth, lack of education and marginalisation.

Main picture: Demolishing slum dwelling in Korsten in 1903

Port Elizabeth of Yore: A grisly discovery

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 3 April 2024 0 Comment

Like a magnet, a murder or any barbaric act always draws the media’s attention. In the case of the “manless head” [the opposite of headless man] discovered on the Fishwater Flats in 1840, it certainly did. This case could have acquired the sobriquet “The Case of the Missing Corpse”

Main picture: View of Fishwater Flats

Port Elizabeth of Yore: Taking the Old Fishery Road to The Fishery

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 22 January 2024 0 Comment

During the 1800s the area known today as Hobie Beach was originally called The Fishery. As the coast south of the harbour was rocky and inland of the shore was covered with fine, soft sand dunes into which ones feet would sink much like into a soft jelly, the direct coastal route was considered impassable. Instead, a circuitous route which bypassed this sand belt, was created. It was this road that was the improvised roadway known as the old Fishery Road which vended its way inland before making a sharp left turn towards the sea.

As The Fishery was the centre of a thriving fishing and whaling operation, its lifeline to civilisation was via this non-descript road for over half a century. It should be noted that minor adjustments were made to this route, the Mark 2 version, which did reduce its length. However, there was never access to the Fishery along the beach, but only by the overland “Fishery Road“.

Main picture: Map of the Fishery Road

Port Elizabeth of Yore: Origin of the name of Heugh Road

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 21 April 2023 0 Comment

On Sunday afternoons in the McCleland’s household we performed our familial duty by visiting the family’s matriarch, Elizabeth Daisy McCleland. She lived with her daughter, Thelma, at 99 Albert Street . One of the roads down which we drove bore a unique but odd name: Heugh. What puzzled me over the years was the origin of the word Heugh. Even though it sounded to be Germanic in origin, it clearly was not Afrikaans.

And so the mystery would remain unsolved for another 60 odd years, until, in the midst of my research into Port Elizabeth’s history, I have tracked it down. It is the derived from a successful merchant of Danish origins, Johannes Pieter Heugh.

Main picture: Castle Hill showing Prospect House formerly Stanley House

Jan Hoets: Connected to both Chase and Korsten

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 22 February 2023 0 Comment

While Jan Hoets might not strictly have been a full-time resident of Port Elizabeth, he was closely connected to two residents who were intimately involved in business in Port Elizabeth and who were largely responsible for Port Elizabeth’s initial growth: These prominent citizens were John Centlivres Chase and Frederick Korsten with the latter person being Hoets’ son-in-law. This arose due to his marriage to Korsten’s eldest daughter, Maria Johanna Charlotta. Of course by marrying a Chase meant that Hoets was also related to the Chases.

By all accounts Hoets was a successful merchant in Cape Town with its more lanquid less frenetic lifestyle. Here the bureaucrat predominated unlike Port Elizabeth which possessed a more energetic business like mien, the very anthesis of Cape Town.

Main picture: Jan Marthinus Hoets, grandson of Jan Hoets, and his wife Arabella Helen Centlivres Chase

Port Elizabeth of Yore: The Settler Family called Damant

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 15 May 2022 0 Comment

Most settler parties conformed to the rules of the Emigration Scheme that they would be settled in the frontier districts. Having been stationed at Fort Frederick for seven years prior to the arrival of the 1820 Settlers, Captain Damant had already decided that the Gamtoos valley area would be the new family home.

This is the saga of the Damant family of Hankey

Main picture: Gamtoos River in 1908

Port Elizabeth of Yore: Horse Racing in the Bay

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 4 March 2022 0 Comment

As racing horses is as old as riding these hoofed herbivorous mammals, the exact origins of horse racing are lost in the mists of time. Uitenhage preceded Port Elizabeth in establishing a Turf Club in 1815. However the first authentic records of organised racing give results of racing held in 1817 and include reports of a racing meeting held in the grounds of Cradock Place, the palatial home of Frederick Korsten on the Papenkuils River. Korsten matched his horses with those of the garrison officers from Fort Frederick. The current Governor, Sir John Cradock, was also a keen racing man and with his support racing naturally flourished.

Main picture: Fairview Race Course

Port Elizabeth of Yore: Chimneys as a Barometer of Progress

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 30 March 2021 0 Comment

Today chimneys are viewed as a curse and a blight on one’s health and the environment. Unlikely as it now is seen, the filthy black smoke spewing out of these pencil-like structures was once viewed as the epitome of progress, a harbinger of wealth and prosperity.

As well-paying holiday jobs, chimney cleaning was a much-coveted job in the early 1970s when I was “recruited” to clean the chimneys of the Algorax factory at Swartkops. Even a half hour shower did not remove the fine granules from one’s skin pores!

Main picture: Henry Coleman’s steam mills with the first chimney

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