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Plaas De Krakeelhoek later called Welvanpas
Pierre Mouy and his two daughters Marie Mouy and Jeanne Mouy
The very first owner was a widower, the Huguenot Pierre Mouij. He had fled from St Armant in Calais with his wife and baby at the time of the persecutions in France. They may have had several more children, but all we know is that when he came out to the Cape on the Donkervliet, he was a widower with two young daughters. The Donkervliet was a small merchant ship and in those days, the officers and crew tended to be a tough crowd. There were also some employees of the Dutch East India Company on board, a ship's doctor and a group of Huguenot immigrants. The men and women were most likely accommodated separately and they were allowed to bring only the most essential luggage. I smile when I remember that as a child I had a mental picture of our Huguenot forebear arriving with the family’s grandfather clock under one arm. The passengers must have spent a lot of time down below, especially in bad weather, praying for the time to pass and for a safe delivery. Of course, being French they could never be quiet for long and would soon have got to know each other, help each other and tell each other about their ordeals. They would not have realised that they were in the eye of a storm, as it were, with turbulent times behind them, and more turbulent times ahead. They were literally all in the same boat and a very special bond must have developed between those who crossed the seas together. Of course the food was monotonous, although there were usually some animals on board for fresh meat. Their diet mainly consisted of ship's biscuits (usually dried bread), salted meat, pickled fish, dried beans and peas. The water on board was scarce and no longer fresh and scurvy was a serious threat. The storms were terrifying and there was always the danger of an attack by pirates. They had to be patient as there was no guarantee of how long the voyage would take. It was not easy for anyone. Fortunately the Donkervliet had a safe passage and entered Table Bay in full sail on a cold July day in 1699. Pierre Mouij stood on the deck with his two daughters, anxious to catch a glimpse of their new homeland. Marié, who had turned 14 during the voyage, was the eldest. Her sister Jeanne, was a year younger. It was Marié, who was destined to become our stammoeder [founding mother]. It is likely that she grasped something in her pocket that seemed to give her courage and was too precious to carry anywhere but on her person. It was a small miniature in an oval frame, nearly 50 years old at that time. Her mother probably had it with her when she fled from Calais when Marié was still a baby. It was certainly precious enough for Marié to have brought it with her on the ship. The little miniature probably often distracted the girls during the voyage, which seemed to go on forever. It had 14 mica transformations that you could place over the little face, creating different characters. There was a lady wearing a mask, a nun, a cavalier and various others. This miniature that belonged to Marié is at present preserved in the Africana Museum in Pretoria. At last the journey was over and the scene before them - of Table Mountain with the small town beneath it - became more beautiful and intriguing as they neared the shore. Eventually the sails were folded one by one and after they had dropped anchor, the ship came to a standstill. Now they could be rowed to the shore. We do not know how new arrivals were welcomed, but they may even have known some of the French people who had come out before them. Pierre Mouij could hardly wait to be allocated a place of his own. He started to look for a fertile and unoccupied spot, where there was good grazing, a level area for planting and a strong stream of water. In Franschhoek and Drakenstein, Huguenots had been farming for a decade by now, so Pierre travelled northwards towards the blue Limietberge and the Val du Charron, where he may even have been looking for a wagon. In the Bovenvallei, the farms had been occupied as far as Opperherfst (Optenhorst), so Pierre continued past this farm, and there, deep in the valley, he found a stream of the clearest water flowing down from the Hawequa Mountain to join a stronger stream further down. This was what he wanted and it was here that he was allocated his farm by Willem Adriaan van der Stel who had succeeded his father by then. As a widower with two daughters, he was classified as a family man. It is unlikely that there was anything left of the poor fund after just more than a decade, but Pierre would still have been entitled to a larger portion of the basic equipment than a bachelor like Francois Retief, had been. Amongst the goods given to him at cost, was a snaphaan, which is a sort of blunderbus. You might even call it a flintlock. He signed for these articles with a mark. His daughter, Jeanne, also signed her name with a mark, but Marié, who in time became a person to be reckoned with, signed with her initials MM. The size of Pierre’s farm is described as twintig morgen en 255 kwadraad Roeden, strekkende NNW na Jan Louwrens van Rostock, en ZZO naar de woeste gebergten ….met volkomen magt en authoriteit om hethalwe van nu af te mogen bezaayen, beplanten, bepooten, betimmeren en bezitten, etc. [On the north westerly side it lay next to the land of Jan Louwrens and to the south east his property stretched back to the rugged mountains. Pierre had full rights on his property. He could build, cultivated and graze his stock.] But he also had an obligation, and that was to provide a wagon track and drift to the width of three square roods through his land. Who knows what hardships the pioneers had to undergo. Although Marié was scarcely 14 when they arrived at the Cape, she must have been a very mature young lady at that, if you consider for a moment what she had been through. She had had the responsibility of being the elder daughter in a family that had lost its mother. She had suffered all the privations of being a refugee and had endured a long sea-voyage on the Donkervliet. Now she was in a strange land, where even her home language was being oppressed. To crown it all, she had to be satisfied to live where her father had taken them - a lonely piece of veld. Like the other pioneers, the family would have started out with a hartebees (harde biesie) huisie [wattle and daub hut]. It is possible that those Huguenots that were already settled helped a new arrival, especially a widower with two young daughters, in many small ways. But all the neighbours were not friendly. Pierre, whom the locals called Pieter, had to put up a fight for a certain portion of rich level land when his neighbour, Jan Louwrens tried to oust him in order to enlarge his portion. Pierre, who spoke fluent Dutch, stated, “Dat hij egter den eersten was geweest wat aldaar hadde gelegen.” [%E2%80%9Cthat he had, however, been the first to be established there.”] Eventually Willem van der Stel decreed a “Solomonic division”, sharing it. We call the area in dispute the Onderland and it is situated along the river. Pierre was allocated the nearest two thirds, while Jan Louwrens received the rest. Pierre started to farm and later to erect the beginnings of the first homestead. The formalities and the paper work took time. De Krakeelhoek, the name Pierre gave his farm, was formally granted to him in 1705. Through an oversight no erfbrief [deed] was given to him, but the matter was rectified on 11 May 1712. He was contracted to deliver one tenth of his grain crop to the Company and plant oak trees. Failing to comply could cause his land to be confiscated.
==1781==
Then Jacobus heard that the two brothers farming up at the top end of the Bovenvallei on Doolhof and De Krakeelhoek, had decided to split up and that De Krakeelhoek, now called Wel Van Pas, had changed hands to Jan Vos. Jacobus knew all about this farm, with its mountain grazing, abundant water and level areas with deep black soil. His grandmother, Marié, had held the bond on it for 23 years after it had been left to her by her father, Pierre Mouij, its first owner. Until Frans, Jacobus's father, was 17, he had visited his grandfather on De Krakeelhoek as it was called at that time. Frans had known for some time that Jacobus needed room for expansion. In fact, Frans must have been quite excited when he heard that his son had decided to sell Soetendal and buy De Krakeelhoek from Jan Vos.
Reference Source :
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https://family.morkel.net/krakeelhoek/
https://gowellington.co.za/go-taste/welvanpas-family-vineyards/