John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe
A STOCK FARMER, and it is his daughter who says so: her 1909 death registration completes field 14 — father’s name in full, and occupation — as “JAN GERSEM ELIEZER KOLBE, STOCK FARMER”, which is the first trade this archive has for him from a document rather than from an obituary’s account of his soldiering. THE SETTLER'S ELDEST CHILD, AND UNTIL TODAY A LINE IN A TABLE. His obituary — Grahamstown Journal, 15 April 1868, headed “DEATH OF COMMANDANT KOLBE” — gives the whole man. Born 7 JULY 1822; married 3 APRIL 1843 to ANNA JACOBA VAN DER MERWE; DIED 3 APRIL 1868, ON HIS WEDDING ANNIVERSARY, at the farm LEEUWBERG, of TYPHUS OR TYPHOID CAUGHT ON COMMANDO — “thus adding another to the long list of victims of our miserable war”. He had settled on KAALSPRUIT about 1850 and lies there — AND HE CONFIRMS THE FARM HIMSELF. A lost-property advertisement he placed in the Friend on 9 MARCH 1864 is signed “J.G.E. KOLBE, Kafferberg, Kaalspruit” (the address as the paper printed it). The Friend’s own obituary transcription reads “[Randspruit]”, bracketed by the transcriber as doubtful; the man’s own address settles it. THAT ADVERTISEMENT ALSO PUTS THE TWO BROTHERS IN ONE DOCUMENT: it concerns “a promissory note, date 9th March 1864, drawn by GEORGE AUGUSTUS KOLBE in favor of J.G.E. KOLBE, payable 4 months after date for £154 Stg” — lost on the Market Square at Bloemfontein. HE LEFT A WIDOW AND TWELVE CHILDREN — “OF THE EIGHT SONS AND FOUR DAUGHTERS HE HAS LEFT BEHIND HIM”, which is the Friend of the Free State’s own wording and a count the Grahamstown reprint drops. Only one daughter was married and the youngest child was an infant; TWO SONS HAD BEEN SERVING WITH HIM IN THE FIELD and “proved themselves amongst the bravest of our burghers”. NONE OF THE TWELVE IS NAMED AND NONE IS IN THIS ARCHIVE. 20 SEPTEMBER 2026 — A COLLABORATIVE TREE NAMES THEM, AND IT IS NOT THIS FAMILY’S OWN. A Geni profile for FREDERIK FORTUNATUS KOLBE, born 22 October 1857 at Bloemfontein and dead there 18 December 1930, gives him as SON OF COMMANDANT.GEN. JOHN GHERSON ELIEZER KOLBE AND ANNA JACOBA, and lists as his siblings CATHARINA WILHELMINA MAGDALENA PIENAAR ANDERSON, GEORGE AUGUSTUS, GENERAL WILLEM JOHANNES, JAN HENDRIK and PETRUS JACOBUS “and 6 others” — which is twelve. THIS IS FROM A USER TREE, NOT FROM A DOCUMENT, and none of the twelve is adopted here on it — it is a lead and not a witness. But TWO OF ITS CLAIMS MATCH DOCUMENTS THIS ARCHIVE REACHED INDEPENDENTLY: his wife MARIA PETRONELLA ELIZABETH ANTOINETTE and daughter ROSA MAGDALENE against the 1890 Bloemfontein baptism already held, and his daughter MARIA MARGARETHA DOWNING ROUSSEAU against TAB MHG 5450/68, an orphan index entry here that now has a father. VAB MHG M777 IS STILL THE DOCUMENT THAT WOULD PROVE THEM, and it is a better thing to order now that there is something to check it against. He was COMMANDANT OF THE DISTRICT, A JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, A DIRECTOR OF THE BLOEMFONTEIN BANK and a DEACON of the Dutch Reformed Church, and he had spoken in the VOLKSRAAD in May 1867. He had refused public life for twelve years after THE ABANDONMENT, having protested the British withdrawal and applied to SIR GEORGE CLERK for compensation for his land so that he might leave with the troops; failing that, “he, like many more, had to cast his lot with the Free State”. AND ON HIS DEATHBED, in full possession of his senses, he told the doctor and the others present THAT THIS STATE HAD TAKEN TOO MUCH LAND FROM THE BASUTOS, that he had always thought so and had said so in the Raad, and begged them to rescind the resolution and treat with the Governor for an equitable boundary. 20 SEPTEMBER 2026 — A HISTORIAN’S DRAFT NAMES HIM TOO, AND NAMES THE WAR. The DSAB entry on his father says the eldest son “J.G.E. KOLBE (1822–68), was later op LEEUBERG naby Bloemfontein woonagtig en het gedurende die TWEEDE SOTHO-VRYSTAATOORLOG roem verwerf as KOMMANDANT”. BOTH YEARS MATCH THIS ARCHIVE TO THE YEAR — born 7 July 1822, dead 3 April 1868 — and both were got from an obituary and an auction advertisement that the entry does not cite. It is the strongest of the nine places where that entry and this archive agree from different documents. AND IT NAMES WHAT KILLED HIM: the obituary said only “our miserable war”; the war was the SECOND SOTHO–FREE STATE WAR. AND HE MAY BE IN THE 1830 LETTER, AGED EIGHT. Read from the file rather than from a mail preview, MSB 751 encloses “a Jacket & waistcoat FOR JOHN & a further Jacket also for him, tell him HIS OLD FATHER has sent it him, & TO MAKE HASTE TO FILL THEM OUT”. CLOTHES FOR A GROWING CHILD, sent from Soho to the Cape in August 1830, when this man was eight years old and the eldest son of the house. IF IT IS HIM IT IS THE EARLIEST DOCUMENT IN THIS ARCHIVE THAT MENTIONS HIM. “His old father” is the difficulty and is not glossed over — the writer is his GRANDFATHER, and this is an inference, not a reading. 11 OCTOBER 2026 — A PUBLISHED HISTORY OF THE FREE STATE MOURNS HIM BY NAME, AND IT HAS BEEN SITTING IN THE OPEN SINCE 1876. H. J. Hofstede, Geschiedenis van den Oranje-Vrijstaat (1876), is out of copyright and its full text is free on the Internet Archive. It names him seventeen times. In an aside the author cannot help making, he writes of “den kommandant van Bloemfontein J. G. E. Kolbe”, taken from them “door een noodlottige koorts” — by a fatal fever — “niet op 't bed van eer, maar in het midden zijner betrekkingen”: not on the bed of honour, but in the midst of his relations, “bemind en geacht door alle rechtgeaarde Vrijstaters als een goed en verstandig medeburger en een voorganger in den strijd tegen geweldenarij en roof”. THAT IS A STRANGER'S VERDICT ON HIM, IN PRINT, EIGHT YEARS AFTER HE DIED, and it is the first this archive has had from anybody who was not a newspaper or a relative. IT ALSO NAMES HIS COMMAND: he is the commandant OF BLOEMFONTEIN, which this archive had nowhere — it had the farm, the district and the rank, never the seat. AND IT AGREES WITH THE OBITUARY ABOUT WHAT KILLED HIM WITHOUT HAVING READ IT. The Grahamstown Journal said typhus or typhoid caught on commando; Hofstede says a fatal fever and is careful to say he did not die in action but at home among his people — which is exactly what a man who carries a camp disease back to his own farm looks like, and the two accounts are the same event told by two men who wanted different things from it. ON THE DATE THEY DIFFER BY ONE DAY AND THE ARCHIVE'S STANDS. Hofstede gives 4 April 1868. The obituary gives 3 April, and 3 April 1868 was a Friday, and it was his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary — three facts that lock together and that a historian writing in 1876 had no reason to hold. 4 April is recorded as a variant and is not adopted. AND IT IS THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF WHAT HE ACTUALLY DID ON COMMANDO. He and Commandant Roos were sent by the President as gijzelaars — hostages for Moshesh's personal safety — so that Moshesh would come in to the meeting; the chief came with his principal sons an hour later. At Klokkelani he surrounded the Basotho and sent word to the hoofdkommandant, who came up with the Armstrong gun. At the Thiemie he went up a footpath with Commandant Prinsloo and two hundred men, reached the summit with fifty, and then held the captured position that divided the mountain in two while the others cleared the northern point; the day's taking was 10,657 cattle, 5,468 sheep and goats and 1,007 horses, and he came back into camp at sunset soaked through and spent. THIS IS THE MAN THE OBITUARY CALLED A LEADER, DOING IT. ONE KOLBE IN THE BOOK IS NOT ESTABLISHED AS HIM: a Kolbe climbs a krans on other men's shoulders with Hunton, Owen, Raaff and the Hangers in a different action under Commandant Wessels, and nothing in the passage says which Kolbe he is. THAT ACTION HAS NOW BEEN PLACED, BY READING THE PAGES BEFORE IT. They are the assaults on THABA BOSIU in August 1865 — the ones Louw Wepener died in — and the page that runs into it ends with the stormers reaching “de eerste loodrecht opgaande rots, die omtrent 20 voet hoog was”, the first sheer rock about twenty feet high. Seven men got up it on each other's shoulders and one of them was a Kolbe. HE IS STILL NOT ESTABLISHED AS THIS MAN, who was a commandant and would not be named bare among a captain and five burghers; a son is as likely, and two of his sons were serving with him. AND THERE IS A SECOND NAME IN THE SAME BOOK THAT IS HARDER TO PUT DOWN. On 6 April 1866, three men were allowed by Sephanja to go up and bring away Louw Wepener's bones: Jan Jonathan Durand, Franz Holm, and “Jan Colbe”. THE ARCHIVE'S OWN MAN IS “JAN GERSEM ELIEZER KOLBE” — that is his daughter's wording on her 1909 death registration — so the given name is exactly right, and that is precisely why it is not adopted. THE PRINTED PAGE HAS NOW BEEN READ, AND IT SAYS COLBE. The leaf was found by parsing the scan's own _djvu.xml, whose page objects carry the OCR leaf by leaf; the Colbe falls on leaf 211, printed folio 160, and the type on that page is unambiguous: “Durand, Franz Holm en Jan Colbe door Sefoni (Sephanja) toegelaten om de beenderen van L. Wepener weg te nemen.” The OCR was faithful and the spelling is the book's own, in a volume that sets Kolbe seventeen times for the Commandant. So the resemblance is weaker than it looked and this archive takes nothing from it. The page is kept for a different reason: it says the bones were buried by J. J. Durand at Wepener's last dwelling place, Constantia in the district of BETHULIE — the district the Settler helped open as the Bushman School — and it dates the failed storming to 15 August 1865, naming the Timie as the mountain taken later. That later mountain is the Thiemie, and the man who held its summit was this Commandant. AND A SECOND BOOK HAS WHAT NO OTHER SOURCE HAS: A DOCUMENT HE WROTE. D. C. F. Moodie, History of the Battles and Adventures of the British, the Boers and the Zulus in Southern Africa (1888), page 93, read as an image and not only as text: “A report from Commandant J. G. E. KOLBE to Commandant Botha, dated PLATBERG, 2nd Nov., 1867, gives an account of the capture of some caverns and strongholds at MARIENDALL.” Moodie summarises it rather than printing it: one Boer killed and two severely wounded; eleven of the enemy killed as far as was known; 120 WOMEN AND CHILDREN TAKEN OUT OF THE CAVERNS AND PUT ACROSS THE CALEDON; twenty wagon loads of corn taken. The next report on the same page is Commandant J. C. BOTHA to the President, Platberg, 7 November 1867 — which gives Botha his initials — and Botha is the commandant who stood beside him on the Thiemie in Hofstede. TWO BOOKS TWELVE YEARS APART, NEITHER CITING THE OTHER, PUT THE SAME TWO MEN TOGETHER. WHAT SURROUNDS IT ON THE PAGE IS MOODIE'S DOING AND IS NOT HIDDEN HERE. Immediately above, Moodie quotes the Rev. Mr Jousse writing from Thaba Bosigo in October 1867 that in a raid nearby people were “killed as dogs indistinctly men, women, and children”, the women and children outnumbering the men. Kolbe's report, as summarised, does not describe killing women and children — it says they were taken out and put across the river — and the juxtaposition is the historian's, not the record's. Both are set down, because an archive that prints a man's commendations and not the war they were earned in is not describing the same war. THE REPORT ITSELF IS NOW A THING TO LOOK FOR, with a date, a place and an addressee to look for it by.
Frederik Fortunatus is here on a user tree's word and nothing else. His death registration names no parents — that line of the form is completed only for a deceased under ten — and the register of his baptism has not been found. He is drawn in because two of his children were baptised to a McCabe mother in the same congregation, which is corroboration and not proof.
The record
| Name | John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe |
| Also written | “Jan” · JOHN GERSON ELIEZER KOLBE, in his obituary · Commandant Kolbe |
| Born | 7 Jul 1822, Uitenhage |
| Died | 3 Apr 1868, the farm Leeuwberg — aged 45 |
| Line | Kolbe |
| Confidence | Documented |
What the archive holds
A STOCK FARMER, and it is his daughter who says so: her 1909 death registration completes field 14 — father’s name in full, and occupation — as “JAN GERSEM ELIEZER KOLBE, STOCK FARMER”, which is the first trade this archive has for him from a document rather than from an obituary’s account of his soldiering. THE SETTLER'S ELDEST CHILD, AND UNTIL TODAY A LINE IN A TABLE. His obituary — Grahamstown Journal, 15 April 1868, headed “DEATH OF COMMANDANT KOLBE” — gives the whole man. Born 7 JULY 1822; married 3 APRIL 1843 to ANNA JACOBA VAN DER MERWE; DIED 3 APRIL 1868, ON HIS WEDDING ANNIVERSARY, at the farm LEEUWBERG, of TYPHUS OR TYPHOID CAUGHT ON COMMANDO — “thus adding another to the long list of victims of our miserable war”. He had settled on KAALSPRUIT about 1850 and lies there — AND HE CONFIRMS THE FARM HIMSELF. A lost-property advertisement he placed in the Friend on 9 MARCH 1864 is signed “J.G.E. KOLBE, Kafferberg, Kaalspruit” (the address as the paper printed it). The Friend’s own obituary transcription reads “[Randspruit]”, bracketed by the transcriber as doubtful; the man’s own address settles it. THAT ADVERTISEMENT ALSO PUTS THE TWO BROTHERS IN ONE DOCUMENT: it concerns “a promissory note, date 9th March 1864, drawn by GEORGE AUGUSTUS KOLBE in favor of J.G.E. KOLBE, payable 4 months after date for £154 Stg” — lost on the Market Square at Bloemfontein. HE LEFT A WIDOW AND TWELVE CHILDREN — “OF THE EIGHT SONS AND FOUR DAUGHTERS HE HAS LEFT BEHIND HIM”, which is the Friend of the Free State’s own wording and a count the Grahamstown reprint drops. Only one daughter was married and the youngest child was an infant; TWO SONS HAD BEEN SERVING WITH HIM IN THE FIELD and “proved themselves amongst the bravest of our burghers”. NONE OF THE TWELVE IS NAMED AND NONE IS IN THIS ARCHIVE. 20 SEPTEMBER 2026 — A COLLABORATIVE TREE NAMES THEM, AND IT IS NOT THIS FAMILY’S OWN. A Geni profile for FREDERIK FORTUNATUS KOLBE, born 22 October 1857 at Bloemfontein and dead there 18 December 1930, gives him as SON OF COMMANDANT.GEN. JOHN GHERSON ELIEZER KOLBE AND ANNA JACOBA, and lists as his siblings CATHARINA WILHELMINA MAGDALENA PIENAAR ANDERSON, GEORGE AUGUSTUS, GENERAL WILLEM JOHANNES, JAN HENDRIK and PETRUS JACOBUS “and 6 others” — which is twelve. THIS IS FROM A USER TREE, NOT FROM A DOCUMENT, and none of the twelve is adopted here on it — it is a lead and not a witness. But TWO OF ITS CLAIMS MATCH DOCUMENTS THIS ARCHIVE REACHED INDEPENDENTLY: his wife MARIA PETRONELLA ELIZABETH ANTOINETTE and daughter ROSA MAGDALENE against the 1890 Bloemfontein baptism already held, and his daughter MARIA MARGARETHA DOWNING ROUSSEAU against TAB MHG 5450/68, an orphan index entry here that now has a father. VAB MHG M777 IS STILL THE DOCUMENT THAT WOULD PROVE THEM, and it is a better thing to order now that there is something to check it against. He was COMMANDANT OF THE DISTRICT, A JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, A DIRECTOR OF THE BLOEMFONTEIN BANK and a DEACON of the Dutch Reformed Church, and he had spoken in the VOLKSRAAD in May 1867. He had refused public life for twelve years after THE ABANDONMENT, having protested the British withdrawal and applied to SIR GEORGE CLERK for compensation for his land so that he might leave with the troops; failing that, “he, like many more, had to cast his lot with the Free State”. AND ON HIS DEATHBED, in full possession of his senses, he told the doctor and the others present THAT THIS STATE HAD TAKEN TOO MUCH LAND FROM THE BASUTOS, that he had always thought so and had said so in the Raad, and begged them to rescind the resolution and treat with the Governor for an equitable boundary. 20 SEPTEMBER 2026 — A HISTORIAN’S DRAFT NAMES HIM TOO, AND NAMES THE WAR. The DSAB entry on his father says the eldest son “J.G.E. KOLBE (1822–68), was later op LEEUBERG naby Bloemfontein woonagtig en het gedurende die TWEEDE SOTHO-VRYSTAATOORLOG roem verwerf as KOMMANDANT”. BOTH YEARS MATCH THIS ARCHIVE TO THE YEAR — born 7 July 1822, dead 3 April 1868 — and both were got from an obituary and an auction advertisement that the entry does not cite. It is the strongest of the nine places where that entry and this archive agree from different documents. AND IT NAMES WHAT KILLED HIM: the obituary said only “our miserable war”; the war was the SECOND SOTHO–FREE STATE WAR. AND HE MAY BE IN THE 1830 LETTER, AGED EIGHT. Read from the file rather than from a mail preview, MSB 751 encloses “a Jacket & waistcoat FOR JOHN & a further Jacket also for him, tell him HIS OLD FATHER has sent it him, & TO MAKE HASTE TO FILL THEM OUT”. CLOTHES FOR A GROWING CHILD, sent from Soho to the Cape in August 1830, when this man was eight years old and the eldest son of the house. IF IT IS HIM IT IS THE EARLIEST DOCUMENT IN THIS ARCHIVE THAT MENTIONS HIM. “His old father” is the difficulty and is not glossed over — the writer is his GRANDFATHER, and this is an inference, not a reading. 11 OCTOBER 2026 — A PUBLISHED HISTORY OF THE FREE STATE MOURNS HIM BY NAME, AND IT HAS BEEN SITTING IN THE OPEN SINCE 1876. H. J. Hofstede, Geschiedenis van den Oranje-Vrijstaat (1876), is out of copyright and its full text is free on the Internet Archive. It names him seventeen times. In an aside the author cannot help making, he writes of “den kommandant van Bloemfontein J. G. E. Kolbe”, taken from them “door een noodlottige koorts” — by a fatal fever — “niet op 't bed van eer, maar in het midden zijner betrekkingen”: not on the bed of honour, but in the midst of his relations, “bemind en geacht door alle rechtgeaarde Vrijstaters als een goed en verstandig medeburger en een voorganger in den strijd tegen geweldenarij en roof”. THAT IS A STRANGER'S VERDICT ON HIM, IN PRINT, EIGHT YEARS AFTER HE DIED, and it is the first this archive has had from anybody who was not a newspaper or a relative. IT ALSO NAMES HIS COMMAND: he is the commandant OF BLOEMFONTEIN, which this archive had nowhere — it had the farm, the district and the rank, never the seat. AND IT AGREES WITH THE OBITUARY ABOUT WHAT KILLED HIM WITHOUT HAVING READ IT. The Grahamstown Journal said typhus or typhoid caught on commando; Hofstede says a fatal fever and is careful to say he did not die in action but at home among his people — which is exactly what a man who carries a camp disease back to his own farm looks like, and the two accounts are the same event told by two men who wanted different things from it. ON THE DATE THEY DIFFER BY ONE DAY AND THE ARCHIVE'S STANDS. Hofstede gives 4 April 1868. The obituary gives 3 April, and 3 April 1868 was a Friday, and it was his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary — three facts that lock together and that a historian writing in 1876 had no reason to hold. 4 April is recorded as a variant and is not adopted. AND IT IS THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF WHAT HE ACTUALLY DID ON COMMANDO. He and Commandant Roos were sent by the President as gijzelaars — hostages for Moshesh's personal safety — so that Moshesh would come in to the meeting; the chief came with his principal sons an hour later. At Klokkelani he surrounded the Basotho and sent word to the hoofdkommandant, who came up with the Armstrong gun. At the Thiemie he went up a footpath with Commandant Prinsloo and two hundred men, reached the summit with fifty, and then held the captured position that divided the mountain in two while the others cleared the northern point; the day's taking was 10,657 cattle, 5,468 sheep and goats and 1,007 horses, and he came back into camp at sunset soaked through and spent. THIS IS THE MAN THE OBITUARY CALLED A LEADER, DOING IT. ONE KOLBE IN THE BOOK IS NOT ESTABLISHED AS HIM: a Kolbe climbs a krans on other men's shoulders with Hunton, Owen, Raaff and the Hangers in a different action under Commandant Wessels, and nothing in the passage says which Kolbe he is. THAT ACTION HAS NOW BEEN PLACED, BY READING THE PAGES BEFORE IT. They are the assaults on THABA BOSIU in August 1865 — the ones Louw Wepener died in — and the page that runs into it ends with the stormers reaching “de eerste loodrecht opgaande rots, die omtrent 20 voet hoog was”, the first sheer rock about twenty feet high. Seven men got up it on each other's shoulders and one of them was a Kolbe. HE IS STILL NOT ESTABLISHED AS THIS MAN, who was a commandant and would not be named bare among a captain and five burghers; a son is as likely, and two of his sons were serving with him. AND THERE IS A SECOND NAME IN THE SAME BOOK THAT IS HARDER TO PUT DOWN. On 6 April 1866, three men were allowed by Sephanja to go up and bring away Louw Wepener's bones: Jan Jonathan Durand, Franz Holm, and “Jan Colbe”. THE ARCHIVE'S OWN MAN IS “JAN GERSEM ELIEZER KOLBE” — that is his daughter's wording on her 1909 death registration — so the given name is exactly right, and that is precisely why it is not adopted. THE PRINTED PAGE HAS NOW BEEN READ, AND IT SAYS COLBE. The leaf was found by parsing the scan's own _djvu.xml, whose page objects carry the OCR leaf by leaf; the Colbe falls on leaf 211, printed folio 160, and the type on that page is unambiguous: “Durand, Franz Holm en Jan Colbe door Sefoni (Sephanja) toegelaten om de beenderen van L. Wepener weg te nemen.” The OCR was faithful and the spelling is the book's own, in a volume that sets Kolbe seventeen times for the Commandant. So the resemblance is weaker than it looked and this archive takes nothing from it. The page is kept for a different reason: it says the bones were buried by J. J. Durand at Wepener's last dwelling place, Constantia in the district of BETHULIE — the district the Settler helped open as the Bushman School — and it dates the failed storming to 15 August 1865, naming the Timie as the mountain taken later. That later mountain is the Thiemie, and the man who held its summit was this Commandant. AND A SECOND BOOK HAS WHAT NO OTHER SOURCE HAS: A DOCUMENT HE WROTE. D. C. F. Moodie, History of the Battles and Adventures of the British, the Boers and the Zulus in Southern Africa (1888), page 93, read as an image and not only as text: “A report from Commandant J. G. E. KOLBE to Commandant Botha, dated PLATBERG, 2nd Nov., 1867, gives an account of the capture of some caverns and strongholds at MARIENDALL.” Moodie summarises it rather than printing it: one Boer killed and two severely wounded; eleven of the enemy killed as far as was known; 120 WOMEN AND CHILDREN TAKEN OUT OF THE CAVERNS AND PUT ACROSS THE CALEDON; twenty wagon loads of corn taken. The next report on the same page is Commandant J. C. BOTHA to the President, Platberg, 7 November 1867 — which gives Botha his initials — and Botha is the commandant who stood beside him on the Thiemie in Hofstede. TWO BOOKS TWELVE YEARS APART, NEITHER CITING THE OTHER, PUT THE SAME TWO MEN TOGETHER. WHAT SURROUNDS IT ON THE PAGE IS MOODIE'S DOING AND IS NOT HIDDEN HERE. Immediately above, Moodie quotes the Rev. Mr Jousse writing from Thaba Bosigo in October 1867 that in a raid nearby people were “killed as dogs indistinctly men, women, and children”, the women and children outnumbering the men. Kolbe's report, as summarised, does not describe killing women and children — it says they were taken out and put across the river — and the juxtaposition is the historian's, not the record's. Both are set down, because an archive that prints a man's commendations and not the war they were earned in is not describing the same war. THE REPORT ITSELF IS NOW A THING TO LOOK FOR, with a date, a place and an addressee to look for it by.
Death of Commandant KolbeThe KolbesFive pages that test itOpen questions
Where the archive puts John
Each carries the document that puts them there. The atlas →
The Booyzen Archive
…The name → The Kolbes end in London, not the Cape Johan Gottlieb Kolbe died at 34 Conduit Street on 18 November 1845 and was buried at the German Savoy Church eight days later, aged 81. The line runs out of the Cape and into a German congregation in Mayfair. The Kolbes → There is a Free State branch, and it held office John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe — the Settler's eldest son — was Commandant of the Bloemfontein district, a Justice of the Peace, a director of the Bloemfontein Bank and a deacon, and died on 3 April 1868 on his wedding anniversary leaving a widow and twelve children. On his deathbed he said the State had taken too much land from the Basutos, and that he had said so in the Raad.…
The documents
…A letter that asks the wrong archivist for the wrong box gets one answer and burns a month , and the only thing that caught it was searching a catalogue twice. The corrections → 1868–1914 · Leeuwberg, a commando, and a farmers’ president — the Free State Kolbes in the British press Commandant John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe , the Settler’s eldest child, died of typhus caught on commando on 3 April 1868, on the farm Leeuwberg , leaving a widow and twelve children — eight sons and four daughters . This archive can put a hand on two of the twelve. The prisoner list and the newspapers between them now put Kolbes back on that farm, in the field, and at the head of the Free State’s farmers.…
…re an index has to stand in for the page 1863 The death notice that adds a generation 1866 The widow remarried, and the farm was two hours from Bloemfontein 1867 Margaret's death notice solves a problem this archive had raised 1868 Leeuwberg, a commando, and a farmers’ president — the Free State Kolbes in the British press 1868 “Death of Commandant Kolbe“ — the Settler’s eldest son, at length 1870 The second wife, named at last 1874 The Werdmullers — a nameless baptism, four newspaper notices, and a Victoria Cross 1876 The oldest man in this archive, and the two names above him 1879 The marriage register — and one ambiguous letter 1884 A farmer who died owning his clothes — and a third "not known" 1885 The estate this archive gave to the wrong ma…
Households
…8 May 1922 Albert Alfred Daschner b. 3 Mar 1927 Edith Dorothy Daschner b. 20 Jan 1930 Henry James Daschner b. 25 Feb 1932 Yvonne Muriel Daschner b. 15 Jul 1935 John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe and Anna Jacoba van der Merwe 11 head born 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 a record read here Married 3 April 1843; he died on the same date twenty-five years later, leaving her with twelve children — eight sons and four daughters, which is his obituary's own count.…
The Marriages
…4 Jul 1819, ST ANNE’S SOHO — Johan Casimir Kolbe 1844 or 1845 — three sources give three years 11 Mar 1906, Smithfield, Orange River Colony Johan Gottlieb Kolbe c. 1764 18 Nov 1845, London Johan Hendrik Cassimir Kolbe 1863, Orange Free State 14 Sep 1923, Bloemfontein — aged 60 John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822, Uitenhage 3 Apr 1868, the farm Leeuwberg — aged 45 John Gottlob Kolbe — — John Henry Kolbe bapt. 29 Jul 1800, St James, Westminster 13 Apr 1832, buried 22 Apr 1832, German Lutheran Church John Kolbe — — John Kolbe the younger — — Julia Kolbe — — Juliet Rosinia Kolbe bapt. 9 Jan 1792, Westminster — Louisa Maria Kolbe 13 May 1810, bapt.…
The People
…His gives van der Merwe. The field is identical; the informants were not , and that is the whole difference between a document that closes a question and one that merely repeats a household.…
…His gives van der Merwe. The field is identical; the informants were not , and that is the whole difference between a document that closes a question and one that merely repeats a household. The Kolbes What Has Been Read John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe also written “Jan” · JOHN GERSON ELIEZER KOLBE, in his obituary · Commandant Kolbe Documented 7 Jul 1822, Uitenhage 3 Apr 1868, the farm Leeuwberg — aged 45 A STOCK FARMER, and it is his daughter who says so: her 1909 death registration completes field 14 — father’s name in full, and occupation — as “JAN GERSEM ELIEZER KOLBE, STOCK FARMER”, which is the first trade this archive has for him from a document rather than from an obituary’s account of his soldiering.…
Andries Frederick Kolbe of Leeuwberg
…The paper that would settle it is VAB MHG M777, the 1896 estate of the Commandant’s widow ANNA JACOBA VAN DER MERWE, filed under her second husband’s name McCABE, WHICH WOULD NAME ALL TWELVE CHILDREN. Identified, unread, in Bloemfontein. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record Andries Frederick Kolbe of Leeuwberg b. 1856 Kolbe 10 siblings Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b.…
Anna Jacoba Kolbe of 1864
…SHE MARRIED ANDRIES PETRUS SMIT , on the Free State registers' evidence, and they had a Jacobus Erasmus and an Anna Jacoba — a third woman of the name in three generations. The marriage itself is not found and the children are index rows. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record Anna Jacoba Kolbe of 1864 b. 3 Nov 1864 Kolbe 10 siblings Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b.…
Anna Jacoba van der Merwe
…THIS IS ALSO THE DOCUMENT THAT WITHDRAWS A PERSON THIS ARCHIVE INVENTED: an “Anna Jacoba Kolbe” was briefly entered here as a daughter, and the word WEDUWE in the register's own hand says she is this woman. Anna Jacoba van der Merwe Kolbe married John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record 11 children with John Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 record George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b. 30 Sep 1845 record Williem Johannes Kolbe of Panfontein 2 Aug 1847 – 23 Apr 1941 record Jan Hendrik Kolbe 5 Jul 1849 – 1924 record Petrus Jacobus Kolbe of 1852 4 May 1852 – 7 Nov 1919 record Margaretha Elizabeth Kolbe of 1854 b.…
…THIS IS ALSO THE DOCUMENT THAT WITHDRAWS A PERSON THIS ARCHIVE INVENTED: an “Anna Jacoba Kolbe” was briefly entered here as a daughter, and the word WEDUWE in the register's own hand says she is this woman. Death of Commandant Kolbe The Women Where the archive puts Anna Bloemfontein Town, capital of the Orange Free State · Orange Free State Leeuwberg Farm · District Bloemfontein, Orange Free State Kaalspruit Farm · District Bloemfontein, Orange Free State Each carries the document that puts them there. The atlas → 2 corrections on this site name Anna Jacoba van der Merwe.…
Anna Susanna Kolbe of 1860
…HER ELDEST SISTER WAS MARRIED AT BLOEMFONTEIN TWO DAYS AFTER SHE WAS CHRISTENED — Catharina Wilhelmina on 8 October 1860, if that marriage is this family's, which is not proved. NOTHING ELSE IS KNOWN OF HER : no marriage, no death, no estate. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record Anna Susanna Kolbe of 1860 b. 15 Aug 1860 Kolbe 10 siblings Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b.…
Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe
…Field 15 asks for the mother’s maiden surname and was given her married one, KOLBE, after a crossed-out word; she was born VAN DER MERWE. And her year of birth here is 1844 where the 1860 marriage record implies 1843 — an age at death is not a birth certificate, and neither is a marriage clerk’s arithmetic. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 Kolbe 10 siblings George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b. 30 Sep 1845 Williem Johannes Kolbe of Panfontein 2 Aug 1847 – 23 Apr 1941 Jan Hendrik Kolbe 5 Jul 1849 – 1924 Petrus Jacobus Kolbe of 1852 4 May 1852 – 7 Nov 1919 Margaretha Elizabeth Kolbe of 1854 b.…
Frederik Fortunatus Kolbe of Bloemspruit
…A NEPHEW REPORTING HIS UNCLE'S DEATH WOULD LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THIS, AND PIENAAR IS ONE OF THE COMMONEST SURNAMES IN THAT DISTRICT. It is written down because it is suggestive, and it is not adopted. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record Frederik Fortunatus Kolbe of Bloemspruit 22 Oct 1859 – 18 Dec 1930 Kolbe 10 siblings Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b.…
George Augustus Kolbe of 1845
…The year in both is the BAPTISM year, not the birth year , which is how a register-derived record usually differs from a font — but this archive holds five men of this name and will not join them on a coincidence of year. The estate is not ordered. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b. 30 Sep 1845 Kolbe 10 siblings Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 Williem Johannes Kolbe of Panfontein 2 Aug 1847 – 23 Apr 1941 Jan Hendrik Kolbe 5 Jul 1849 – 1924 Petrus Jacobus Kolbe of 1852 4 May 1852 – 7 Nov 1919 Margaretha Elizabeth Kolbe of 1854 b.…
Jan Hendrik Kolbe
…JOHN HENRY IS JAN HENDRIK ANGLICISED , and under that spelling the registers give him five children by Rose Maria McCabe: JOHN GERSON ELIEZER — the Commandant's name entire — Elizabeth Magdalena, Ada Francis, Anna Jacoba and Rosa Euphemia. A man names his eldest son after his own father, and this one did. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record Jan Hendrik Kolbe 5 Jul 1849 – 1924 Kolbe 10 siblings Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b. 30 Sep 1845 Williem Johannes Kolbe of Panfontein 2 Aug 1847 – 23 Apr 1941 Petrus Jacobus Kolbe of 1852 4 May 1852 – 7 Nov 1919 Margaretha Elizabeth Kolbe of 1854 b.…
Johan Hendrik Cassimir Kolbe
…His gives van der Merwe. The field is identical; the informants were not , and that is the whole difference between a document that closes a question and one that merely repeats a household. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record Johan Hendrik Cassimir Kolbe 1863 – 14 Sep 1923 Kolbe 10 siblings Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b.…
John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe
…THE SETTLER'S ELDEST CHILD, AND UNTIL TODAY A LINE IN A TABLE.…
…ch is how a daughter filed under a married surname this archive had never heard of, and a son whose forenames run two of his brothers' together, were both reached. What Was Searched → Every record naming John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe → The record Name John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe Also written “Jan” · JOHN GERSON ELIEZER KOLBE, in his obituary · Commandant Kolbe Born 7 Jul 1822, Uitenhage Died 3 Apr 1868, the farm Leeuwberg — aged 45 Line Kolbe Confidence Documented What the archive holds A STOCK FARMER, and it is his daughter who says so: her 1909 death registration completes field 14 — father’s name in full, and occupation — as “JAN GERSEM ELIEZER KOLBE, STOCK FARMER”, which is the first trade this archive has for him from a document rather than from a…
Margaretha Elizabeth Kolbe of 1854
…HER MOTHER'S NAME IS NOT IN HERS , which is worth noticing in a family that named a son for the grandfather it had just buried: the Margaretha is the SETTLER'S WIFE, Margaret Downing, dead thirteen years after this child was born and alive when she was christened. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record Margaretha Elizabeth Kolbe of 1854 b. 16 Feb 1854 Kolbe 10 siblings Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b.…
Petrus Jacobus Kolbe of 1852
…He took church membership at Bloemfontein on 5 FEBRUARY 1876 , aged twenty-three, and the Free State registers give him a wife, MARGARETHA ELIZABETH LOUW , and children including a Gwendolina and a Jacoba . His elder brother married a Louw too. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record Petrus Jacobus Kolbe of 1852 4 May 1852 – 7 Nov 1919 Kolbe 10 siblings Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b. 30 Sep 1845 Williem Johannes Kolbe of Panfontein 2 Aug 1847 – 23 Apr 1941 Jan Hendrik Kolbe 5 Jul 1849 – 1924 Margaretha Elizabeth Kolbe of 1854 b.…
Williem Johannes Kolbe of Panfontein
…Two documents agreeing on a name, a year and a district is strong and is not a register. VAB MHG M777 , the widow's 1896 estate, would name all twelve children — and so, in his own words, might Herinneringe van genl. W J Kolbe at the Free State Archives. Parents John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe 7 Jul 1822 – 3 Apr 1868 record Anna Jacoba van der Merwe record Williem Johannes Kolbe of Panfontein 2 Aug 1847 – 23 Apr 1941 Kolbe 10 siblings Catharina Wilhelmina Kolbe 1844 – 3 Feb 1909 George Augustus Kolbe of 1845 b. 30 Sep 1845 Jan Hendrik Kolbe 5 Jul 1849 – 1924 Petrus Jacobus Kolbe of 1852 4 May 1852 – 7 Nov 1919 Margaretha Elizabeth Kolbe of 1854 b.…
The Register
…rica, Cape, Cemetery Records, 1872-2011 Johannes Frederik Kolbe Death 18 Apr 1957 Bezuidenhout Valley, Johannesburg, Transvaal, South Africa | Birth 1899 Transvaal record ↗ South Africa, Civil Death Registration, 1953-1967 Johannes Fredrik Kolbe Birth 1928 · with: Caroline Hartmann record ↗ South Africa, Civil Marriage Records, 1801-1974 John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe reconstructed 7 Jul 1822, Uitenhage · 3 Apr 1868, the farm Leeuwberg — aged 45 no public link reconstructed by this archive John Gottlob Kolbe reconstructed — no public link reconstructed by this archive John Henry Kolbe reconstructed bapt. 29 Jul 1800, St James, Westminster · 13 Apr 1832, buried 22 Apr 1832, German Lutheran Church no public link reconstructed by this archive John Kolbe Birth 191…
The Timeline
…1834 — Charles Bell draws Kolbe in the pulpit at Philippolis 4 Nov 1838 — Petrus Jacobus Booysen marries Johanna Catharina Mountjoy 4 Nov 1838 — Booysen marries Mountjoy at Cradock 25 Jun 1840 — “Names of the Parents of the Deceased.…
The women
…In 1834 she petitioned the Colonial Office in her own voice for remission of a fine. That document has been asked for and has not yet come. Anna Jacoba van der Merwe — widowed on her wedding anniversary Married John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe on 3 April 1843 . Widowed 3 April 1868 — “strange coincidence, died on the anniversary of his wedding day” — with twelve children , of whom only one daughter was married and the youngest was an infant. Six months later a horse thief took a black mare and foal from her at Springfield, ward Upper Modder River , and the court wrote her down as owner in her own name.…
Others on the Kolbe side
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A dossier is every mention of a person anywhere in this archive, gathered automatically after the site is built and linked back to the page it appears on. Identity here is by NAME, not by resolved individual — where two people share a name they share this page, and the archive says so rather than guessing. Nothing on a dossier page is new evidence; it is the same evidence, brought together.