Bellevue - Kuils River

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Aka: Houd den Mond / Houd den Bek (pre-1851)

Built: 1803

Source: Bellevue

Notes

In 1701 the farm was granted to Christoffel Groenewald. Its T-shaped house was built in 1803. The original cellar was built by Jan Mechau in 1820. Dirk Cloete Morkel purchased the farm in 1861 - primarily for livestock farming. Under his ownership, the farm expanded significantly - to around 1,500 morgen (a large area by 19th-century standards), incorporating vineyards, grazing land, and mixed agriculture. Bellevue remained in the Morkel family for 150 years until it was purchased by Marinus Neethling.
  • Christoffel Groenewald (also spelled Christoph Grünewaldt) (? - c.1721), was a Prussian-born blacksmith who settled at the Cape. He arrived at the Cape around the late 1690s or early 1700s as a VOC (Dutch East India Company) employee or free settler.
  • Johannes (Jan) Julius Mechau / Michau (1764 Germany - 1835). He arrived at the Cape as a soldier/servant for the Dutch East India Company (VOC), chamber Amsterdam, departing in 1785 on the ship Texelstroom. He is considered the stamvader/progenitor of the Mechau/Michau line in South Africa. He is listed variously as a butcher in some records, but by the 1820s he was involved in farming/land ownership. He married Anna Catharina Jacobs (granddaughter of Jan Jacobs from Ter Veere, Holland) in 1796 in the Cape.
  • Dirk Cloete Morkel (1838 Cape - 1914). He also served as a Veldkornet.

Locality

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