Page 105 - Bulletin 19 2015

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The Silvermine farm had grazing for two hundred cows, and the Smits used a two-horse

wagon to deliver milk to Simon’s Town and Cron’s Dairy in Fish Hoek. For many years the
sandy soil of the farm was cultivated for vegetables, and during the 1950s ‘Bokkie’ Smit used

to deliver fresh produce door-to-door by horse and cart to a number of homes in the Fish
Hoek Valley. The family also ran a vegetable shop in the Fish Hoek Main Road, located

originally at the current arcade entrance to Pick ‘n Pay. But it was a hard life financially, and

the children had to be driven to school in a Cape cart, built in the famous Retief wagon
factory at Paarl, and it was only in 1960 that the family was able to buy an old pick-up truck.

Eventually, starting in the late 1960s, all the farms in the Silvermine Valley were

expropriated by the Municipality of Cape Town, and in 1969 Wynand Smit junior was the
last member of the family to leave the farm. The plans for another dam on the river were

abandoned, and the Silvermine Valley was transferred to the Table Mountain Nature Reserve
in 1998, while the original farmhouse was restored as a nature conservation office (Figs 2.34

& 2.35). The old Silvermine farmhouse, built by Willem F. Kirsten in 1812/13, is now over
200 years old.

The Cemetery on Silvermine Farm

Another historic structure in the Silvermine Valley is the Kirsten / Van der Poll family
cemetery. It was established some 120 years ago to the west of the old Silvermine farmhouse,

and three of the graves have headstones. The oldest reflects the death of Magdalena,
Gerhardus and Maria van der Poll’s second child, who died on 18 November 1898 at the age

of twelve. The other two are the graves of the owners of Silvermine farm, her grandmother,

Magdalena Kirsten, who died on 27 December 1902 at the age of 73, and Magdalena’s
husband William Kirsten, who died just over a month later, on 3 February 1903 at the age of

61 (Fig. 2.36.) The couple appear to have been close, and perhaps he lost the will to live after

his spouse had passed away.

Important Findings

 The possible location of the Aghter de Steenbergh buitepos

 The possible location of the hut used by the silver miners

 The possible origin of Die Kruithuis