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Blerk, and in 1879 to Alida Rocher, Pierre’s daughter-in-law. A year later it was sold to J. A.

Carlsson, and eighteen months later to his brother J. H. Carlsson. In 1883 it was sold to
William J. Kirsten, Willem F. Kirsten’s grandson, who kept it until his death in 1903. So, for

some ninety-five years, ownership of the farm moved between various members of the Smit,
Kirsten, Hurter, Rocher, De Villiers, Van Blerk and Carlsson families.

The later farms in the Valley, 1884 - 1969

The background to William J. Kirsten’s 1883 purchase of the Silvermine farm (Figs. 2.28 &

2.29) is interesting. The Kirsten and Van der Poll families were closely related: William had
two uncles, William F. and Jan Kirsten, who had married two Van der Poll sisters, and an

aunt, Jacomina Kirsten, who had married their brother, Hendrik van der Poll junior. Many
years before, the Van der Poll siblings’ father, Hendrik senior, had been granted the farm

Raapkraal, which incorporated much of the Lakeside area, and he had extended these land
holdings when he purchased the Pollsmoor estate in 1834. Hendrik van der Poll senior’s

oldest son, Hermanus, was a transport rider, whose teams of ox-wagons, based at Raapkraal,

transported cargoes from Simon’s Town to Cape Town. By landing their cargoes at Simon’s
Town, ships carrying sugar from Mauritius could avoid having to beat a passage around Cape

Point to Table Bay. Hermanus was nineteen years older than his wife Magdalena (née
Gildenhuys), and when he died in 1867 she was left as a widow with seven children. William

J. Kirsten had grown up on the Silvermine farm, and although he was eleven years younger
than Magdalena, they married soon after Hermanus’ death, and the family moved south

across the Steenbergen. The Kirstens went on to have three more children of their own, and

later bought the Silvermine farm. In contrast, Hendrik junior and Jacomina van der Poll had
no children. Hendrik bought the family farms from his father in 1862, and when he died in

1894, he left his land holdings to his Kirsten nephews (William F. and Jan’s sons) who had

managed the farms for him. The suburb Kirstenhof is named after Hendrik’s nephews,
William, Hendrik and Johan Kirsten.

Magdalena Kirsten was related to other prominent families in the South Peninsula. Her oldest

sister, Maria, married Andries Bruyns of the farm Kleinvischhoek, and another sister,
Elizabeth, married Abraham Auret. The Aurets were False Bay whalers and fishermen and

the family owned much of the Muizenberg of today. Abraham and his family lived in a house