David Hobson

Birth registered at Dr Williams's Library, London on 10 Mar 1819; Entry #2377 chr. (Baptist Register).

On some family Death Notices he is listed as David Edmund Hobson but on his own Birth and Death Certificates he is David Hobson.

Hobson, David, was one of Mr. William Smith's party by the Northampton. He was quite a young man, being twenty-two years of age, and was accompanied by his brother William Carey Hobson, aged fourteen years. The brothers began sheep farming in Albany, on the farms Salem and Cottesbrook, but lost everything during the three successive Kafir wars, in which they took an active part, being noted as dead shots. During the war of 1835 David accepted service in the Commissariat department. In 1842 the brothers left Albany for the Karroo— Carey first, David following, bringing with them a few merino sheep, up to that time unknown in the Graaff Reinet district, the Boers there farming only with the Cape sheep and common goats. They settled down in the neiglhbourhood of Loot's Kloof, being then the only English farmers in that large district. By dint of undaunted perseverance they became the owners of many square miles of land, and were fairly prosperous. David married Mary Anne Robinson, and had four sons and five daughters. He died at his farm Wellfound, aged seventy-three years. •Carey married Susan Bonin — two sons and two daughters. He died at Graham's Town,

Mary Ann ROBINSON and David HOBSON attended the marriage Court hearing on 6 Feb 1823, where they were given permission to marry (and where all the ROBINSON names were incorrectly recorded as ROBERTSON), yet there is no record of them being married in Grahamstown that week, which would have been customary. Even though David HOBSON was a Baptist, as far as I can be ascertained there was no licensed Baptist Minister in the Cape at the time. Other Baptist marriages have been found to have been conducted by Presbyterian, Lutheran and other Calvinist Ministers, including DRC. They seem to have avoided the established church (Anglican) and the Methodists, for some reason. In the Cape Colony, only the DRC and Anglicans were properly licensed to marry people at that time, though it didn't seem to deter the Methodists. The normal thing would have been for a couple to attend the marriage court, get permission (or not) the same day, and the very next Sunday they would be married. The 6th February 1823 was a Thursday, so the couple would have been expected to marry on Sunday, 9th February. Despite a lot of searching, nobody has yet come up with a Marriage record for this couple.

According to AE MAKIN in his pamphlet entitled ‘The 1820 Settlers of Salem’ sub-titled Family: ROBINSON : “In about 1826 the Settler’s eldest daughter, Mary Ann, married David HOBSON who also emigrated in 1820 at the age of twenty-two aboard the ship Northampton in the party of William SMITH. The couple started married life at Reed Fountain where they farmed, mainly with sheep, until the outbreak of the Sixth Frontier War in December, 1834, when HOBSON entered the Commissariat Department. By 1838 the couple were farming on the Kat River. Stock thieving by natives from across the nearby border was heavy and on one occasion HOBSON followed the spoor of a thief and fired at and wounded him as he was carrying one of his stolen sheep across the border. Not long after this event HOBSON moved with his family to the Uitenhage district where in the year 1849 he owned the farms Welgevonden and Baviaans Krans in the field-cornetcy of Riet River.”

Death Notice: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSQ6-G3RJ-B?i=1262...

Cemetery is on a section of the original Martyrsford farm in the Jansenville District