Following the example set by his father John, Robert raised a large family — enough, as the saying goes, to form a rugby team — though he stopped at thirteen, born over a period of twenty-five years from 1847 to 1872.
As was common among early settler families, not all children survived to adulthood, and some did not outlive their parents. After the first four children born in the Rietrivier area — Christina, John (Jan), Charlotte, and Elizabeth — the remaining nine were born and registered in Bloemfontein: Gerrit (Gert), Maria, Robert, Christiaan, Fanny, William, George, Jane, and Jane.
The second-last child named Jane died before the age of two, and shortly thereafter the thirteenth child was born and also named Jane — a common practice at the time when a deceased child’s name was given to a later sibling. Two of the children, John and Fanny, never married nor had children.
With six sons, there was good prospect for the Parkin name to become firmly entrenched in the region during the period when it was governed first as the Orange River Sovereignty (1848–1854) and thereafter as the Orange Free State (1854–1902), until the conclusion of the Anglo-Boer War. Five of the daughters also carried Robert’s lineage into other families, including the surnames van den Berg, Sommers, Bradfield, Blackie, and van Loggerenberg.
In the early years of settlement, prior to formal British administration in 1848, Boer trekkers would stake claims to land by occupation, sometimes marking boundaries with piles of stones, blazed trees, or prominent natural features. In 1848, under British rule in the Orange River Sovereignty, a formal system of Land Certificates was introduced. This required rudimentary surveying and the placement of stone beacons to define the corners of a property.
Robert was issued with “Landcertificaat No. 268” for Vlakfontein on 1 May 1849. This certificate would have been issued under British administration and recorded in official registers in Bloemfontein. The farm was later formally surveyed in April 1883 by a landsmeter (surveyor), and this diagram forms the earliest surviving survey record of the property in the office of the Surveyor-General in Bloemfontein today.
On 16 June 1853, Robert placed an advertisement in the Bloemfontein newspaper The Friend of the Sovereignty and Bloemfontein Gazette offering the farm Vlakfontein for sale, indicating his intention at the time to leave the Sovereignty. The advertisement described the farm as:
“This farm, on which are two fine stone kraals, possesses a large quantity of good arable land, suitable for sheep and cattle, abundance of water, easy access for stock and for the purpose of irrigation, and plenty of firewood. Title clear, and quitrent very moderate; and a credit extending over ten years can be obtained for the amount of the purchase money; thus offering to the intending settler, the speculator, and others an opportunity of procuring a good farm on very easy terms, which very rarely occurs.”
This strongly suggests that Robert held unencumbered title under a formally issued Land Certificate and that the annual quitrent (tax) was low. In a period when land disputes were not uncommon, the phrase “title clear” would have carried particular reassurance.
In the end, Robert did not sell the farm in 1853. Vlakfontein later formed one of the three properties listed in his will dated 1885, the other two being Klipdrift and Roodepoort, which he acquired in the intervening years.
With Vlakfontein estimated at approximately 3532 morgen (about 3 000 hectares) and the other two properties at least 1,500 hectares each, Robert had accumulated a substantial amount of high-quality land in a prime position. The farms appear to have been close to one another, possibly even adjoining, stretching roughly west to east along the main route from the Cape to Bloemfontein and further north.
This would have made them ideal resting points for travellers, horses, and cattle, with reliable water and grazing, and would also have supported the family’s other occupation as butchers.
In the years leading up to Robert’s death on 15 January 1886, he and Johanna suffered the loss of four children.
The first was Jane (born 1870), who died before the age of two. Fanny (born 1863) is recorded only by her birth and appears to have died young. Elizabeth (born 1849) died in 1872 on the farm Vlakfontein. She had married Richard Bradfield at the age of nineteen and had two children before her death at just twenty-two.
Interestingly, Elizabeth left a detailed will appointing her husband as executor and leaving £100 to her sister Maria — a considerable sum at the time, likely equivalent to more than a year’s wages for a skilled artisan. Her will also mentions properties in Port Elizabeth, which she likely inherited from her grandfather John Parkin. The remainder of her worldly goods was left to her two infant children, Louise and Robert.
The fourth child to pass before Robert was John (Jan), born in 1847, who died on the farm Vlakfontein in 1884. He never married.
On 15 August 1885, Robert and Johanna signed a joint will setting out how their estate should be divided among their surviving children, spouses, and grandchildren. It was their wish that the farms Vlakfontein, Roodepoort, and Klipdrift remain within the family and be shared equally, with the surviving spouse retaining life rights to the properties.
In accordance with the liquidation laws of the time, the farms were placed on auction in April 1886 to establish market value, although it was anticipated that the properties would ultimately remain within the family. As expected, the offers were insufficient, and in August 1886 the family signed an agreement withdrawing the land from the public market and partitioning the farms into undivided shares.
Following the settlement of Robert’s estate, the farm Vlakfontein was divided into eight equal portions of 441 morgen, with a small area left as a family graveyard at the southern end of the original farm.
The resulting subdivisions, recorded in the Surveyor-General’s office on 26 August 1890, were as follows:
• Vlakfontein remainder – Appears to have been left to George Parkin. Later, in 1895, this division was again subdivided into:
o Kleingeluk – George Parkin
o Vlakfontein remainder – Charlotte (Parkin) and Schalk van den Berg
• Langedeel – William Parkin
• Parkin’s Rust – Robert (jnr) Parkin
• Van Tonderspoort – Jane Elizabeth (Parkin) and Joachim van Loggerenberg
• Klippan – Christiaan Jacobus Parkin
• Kleinfontein (later called Fonteintjie) – Maria (Parkin) and Jacob J. Sommers
• Halfweg – Charlotte (Parkin) and Schalk van den Berg
• Rustgevonden – Gert Parkin
The precise location and subsequent history of Roodepoort and Klipdrift remain uncertain. One possibility is that these two farms lay adjacent to one another along the Modder River on the boundary of the Bloemfontein and Boshof districts. Further research is ongoing.
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