Pieter Daniel de Villiers, c4d5

Wine farmer and field cornet for the Drakenstein area. He was a successful farmer, and acquired the farms La Dauphine in Franschhoek (on 16 Aug 1811), and Palmietsvallei, a "leningsplaas" in the Riviersonderend district.

He was appointed as the field cornet for Franschhoek on 9 Dec 1811, and requested to be relieved of these duties on 1 October 1818 due to ill health.

In 1827 he lost 7 slaves after they deserted. The slaves were emancipated in 1834.

Extract from DP de Villiers, A History of the De Villiers Family, Nationale Boekhandel Bpk, 1960:

Pieter Daniel de Villiers, born on 18 March, 1766, and baptised on 7 April 1766, is my next direct ancestor. He was married firstly to Johanna Jacoba de Villiers. Their will was made on 5 December 1798. They lived at La Dauphine French Hoek, which remained in the family for many years.

They acquired La Dauphine from Daniel Jacobus Jacobse, on 16 August 1811. It measured 60 morgen and the price paid was 575 pounds. The original grant of land was to Steeven or Etienne Niel, ancestor of the Nel family in South Africa, on 14 August 1710.

The initials of DJ Jacobse and his wife, Sarie Marais (or Maree), are on the front gable of La Dauphine, which, although it was De Villiers-owned for many years, was not built by my ancestor, Pieter Daniel de Villiers.

On 18 November 1811, Pieter Daniel de Villiers and his second wife, Magdalena du Plessis, made a new will before the notable Petrus Borchardus Borcherds, the landdrost of Stellenbosch. His married son, Pieter Jacob is named, as also his other children Abraham Albertus, Elisabeth Rachel, and Jacob Louis. This will was presented at the Orphan Chamber on 16 April 1819. Magdalena du Plessis died in that year. Pieter Daniel and Magdalena du Plessis had a son, Charl Jacobus de Villiers, born in 1810. He was my ancestor in the 5th generation. He lived at Dassenberg, French Hoek, and later migrated to Beaufort West in the Karroo.

Franschhoek, West Cape, South Africa noble de Villiers.

Pieter Daniel de Villiers and Johanna Jacoba de Villiers.

This lineage of Pieter de Villiers seem to be the clan of the De Villiers Family of the French Huguenots and Winemaking
Three brothers –

Pierre de Villiers (1657-1720), Jacques de Villiers (1661-1735) and Abraham de Villiers (1659-1720) – arrived in the Cape Colony aboard the Zion in 1689.

The French Huguenots farmed the wineries of these regions, this article below is a fantastic detailed history of these families.

Governor van der Stel enthusiastically greeted the fleet and settled the families in and around Stellenbosch and the Drakenstein valley, with some in an area that quickly became known as Franschhoek (French Corner), and others in nearby regions.[22] It was with the arrival of these refugees that wine making in the Cape Colony received the boost it needed.

From Viticulture to Commemoration: French Huguenot Memory in the Cape Colony (1688-1824)

LINK:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/w/wsfh/0642292.0047.007?view=text;rgn=main
Source:
The Journal of the Western Society for French History