Jan Frederik Bredenkamp

Death Notice https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSQX-CVLV?i=597&cc...

Christening https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSK6-CSB8-D?cat=95...

https://issuu.com/jayceebotha/docs/ollies_gedenkboek_1.03

Jan was one of a twin. On his death Notice, they wrongly say that the father is Barend Bredenkamp.

https://bredenkampsofdanielskuil.wordpress.com/about/

https://www.pressreader.com/ The bequest that gave birth to Tesselaarsdal Cape Argus18 Aug 2016 THERE’s a rustic hamlet in the Overberg named Tesselaarsdal which has a special place in our history. Hartebeestrivier, the farm on which it is situated, was bequeathed by a well-to-do Cape Dutch couple to nine mixed-race beneficiaries in a joint will signed in 1809.

They were Joggom Koert, Gert Gertse, Jan Gertse, Barend and Jan Frederik Bredenkamp (twins) and four Heizenberg girls: Alida, Christina, Elizabeth and Aletta.

The last four are thought to have been the illegitimate children of the twins’ mother, a woman of colour named Maria Elisabeth Heizenberg, and there is speculation some of the beneficiaries may have been the offspring of the owner of the farm, Johannes Jacobus Tesselaar (1748-1810), whose marriage was childless.

The legatees were all baptised, apparently at the instigation of the Tesselaars, who signed as witnesses.

Maria, who was said to be of mixed Khoi and slave ancestry, was the daughter of Antonie Heysenberg and Helena of the Cape. The twins were born in October 1797 and baptised in January 1801, but their mother must have died soon afterwards as she was not named a beneficiary.

The provisions of the will didn’t become effective until the death of the surviving spouse, which occurred in 1832. The little settlement nestling below the Kleinrivier Mountains was known as Hartebeestrivier for the next century, but its name was changed to Tesselaarsdal in 1930 to avoid postal confusion.

Who were the couple whose generous impulse was so exceptional 200 years ago?

Little has been written about them, apart from the fact that JJ Tesselaar was the son of a lowly German immigrant named Johannes Tesselaar and that he served as a sub-lieutenant in the Cape Burgher Cavalry prior to the First British Occupation in 1795.

It has been stated he received several loan farms in the Overberg in payment for his military services, but he is far more likely to have made use of his close connections to the influential “Cape gentry” to get ahead.

His father, who arrived as a VOC soldier in 1741 and became a trumpeter in 1745, was just one of numerous ambitious Germans who made advantageous marriages at the Cape.

His choice fell on Johanna Catharina Smuts (1728-1807), third daughter of Johannes Smuts and Judith Kuyp.

Johanna was an infant when her father died in 1729 and she grew up in half-German households thereafter.

At the age of 15, Johanna and her sisters received something from their grandmother’s estate.

They were orphans by then, and she married Johannes Tesselaar three years later, unaware she would bear seven children and be widowed in less than 11 years.

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