Bloemfontein
THE TOWN THE COMMANDANT'S WHOLE PUBLIC LIFE WAS ATTACHED TO, and it took this archive until today to give it a pin. John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe was a DIRECTOR OF THE BLOEMFONTEIN BANK, a Justice of the Peace, Commandant of this district and a deacon of its Dutch Reformed Church; he advertised a lost promissory note for £154 sterling on its MARKET SQUARE in March 1864; he sat as FOREMAN OF THE JURY in a forgery trial here in 1866, before Mr van Soelen. His farm lay about two hours' ride away. AND THE MAN THE FREE STATE ESTATE INDEX HIDES HIS WIDOW BEHIND WAS THIS TOWN'S OWN LANDDROST. Francis McCabe, born at a frontier military post on 29 September 1817, son of Dr Patrick McCabe of the British Army on the Cape Frontier, married Anna Jacoba van der Merwe about April 1871 and was dead by 23 February 1872, of heart disease on the Modder River road after a cart went into a sluit in the moonlight. He was buried here on the Sunday afternoon at six o'clock, the coffin carried from the house by the resident members of the Volksraad and the principal government officers, with the State President and upwards of two hundred people walking behind. AND A DEATH IN THIS DISTRICT, ADDED 13 OCTOBER 2026. WILLEM JOHANNES KOLBE — the Panfontein prisoner this archive argues is General W. J. Kolbe — died at MERIBA in this district on 23 APRIL 1941, aged 93, by his civil death registration. That registration is also the best thing the identification has: it enters him born 1848 at PHILIPPOLIS, which is the birthplace the Afrikaans sources give for the general, reached independently by a registrar who had never read them. MERIBA ITSELF IS NOT PLOTTED — no coordinate has been established for it, and none is invented here, so the fact sits at the district town until the farm can be located.
The place
| Name | Bloemfontein |
| Kind | Town, capital of the Orange Free State |
| Region | Orange Free State |
| Standing | Documented |
Why it is here
THE TOWN THE COMMANDANT'S WHOLE PUBLIC LIFE WAS ATTACHED TO, and it took this archive until today to give it a pin. John Gerson Eliezar Kolbe was a DIRECTOR OF THE BLOEMFONTEIN BANK, a Justice of the Peace, Commandant of this district and a deacon of its Dutch Reformed Church; he advertised a lost promissory note for £154 sterling on its MARKET SQUARE in March 1864; he sat as FOREMAN OF THE JURY in a forgery trial here in 1866, before Mr van Soelen. His farm lay about two hours' ride away. AND THE MAN THE FREE STATE ESTATE INDEX HIDES HIS WIDOW BEHIND WAS THIS TOWN'S OWN LANDDROST. Francis McCabe, born at a frontier military post on 29 September 1817, son of Dr Patrick McCabe of the British Army on the Cape Frontier, married Anna Jacoba van der Merwe about April 1871 and was dead by 23 February 1872, of heart disease on the Modder River road after a cart went into a sluit in the moonlight. He was buried here on the Sunday afternoon at six o'clock, the coffin carried from the house by the resident members of the Volksraad and the principal government officers, with the State President and upwards of two hundred people walking behind. AND A DEATH IN THIS DISTRICT, ADDED 13 OCTOBER 2026. WILLEM JOHANNES KOLBE — the Panfontein prisoner this archive argues is General W. J. Kolbe — died at MERIBA in this district on 23 APRIL 1941, aged 93, by his civil death registration. That registration is also the best thing the identification has: it enters him born 1848 at PHILIPPOLIS, which is the birthplace the Afrikaans sources give for the general, reached independently by a registrar who had never read them. MERIBA ITSELF IS NOT PLOTTED — no coordinate has been established for it, and none is invented here, so the fact sits at the district town until the farm can be located.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| 9 Mar 1864 | J.G.E. Kolbe loses a promissory note for £154 sterling on the Market Square |
| 1866 | he sits as foreman of the jury in a forgery trial |
| 6 Apr 1868 | he is buried; the President of the Free State speaks at the grave |
| c. Apr 1871 | his widow marries Francis McCabe, Landdrost of Bloemfontein |
| 23 Feb 1872 | McCabe dies on the Modder River road, and she is widowed a second time |
| 1896 | she dies — VAB MHG M777, filed under McCabe |
| 23 Apr 1941 | Willem Johannes Kolbe dies at Meriba in this district, aged 93 |