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source of income. Still, Joseph Gabriel Kallis (son of Joseph Kallis) was able to buy the
southernmost portion of the farm Olifansbos (from just north of the original homestead at
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Olifantsbos Bay south to the boundary with Blaauwberg Vlei) on December 14 , 1898 (88)
and from where the Kallis’ appears to have been able to eke out a reasonable existence until
eventually selling their shares in this property to become part of the Cape of Good Hope
Nature Reserve in the 1940s.

Returning to McKellar, he appears to have had a downhill slide towards insolvency after the
Jane was lost in a storm in 1884. A notice placed by the Colonial Orphan Chamber and Trust
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Company in the Lantern of Saturday, September 26 , 1885 announced the public sale of
‘Cape Point and adjoining farms’. Sundry assets in the insolvent estate of John McKellar
were said to include, ‘1 cutter lying in Simon’s Town’, which leaves one to ask if the Jane
had, in fact, been lost or simply damaged / put out of action. Also included in the sale were
the farms ‘Krom River’ and ‘Klass Jager’s River’ suggesting McKellar was not the only
landowner in this part of the Peninsula to have fallen on desperate times. (Fig. 2.22.)

nd
On May 22 , 1886, George Smith, a plumber and purveyor of galvanized iron products
based at 73 Plein Street, Cape Town, purchased Buffelsfontein and Cape Point Farm. With
five sons and a daughter it appears that Smith’s intention was not only to realize the full
potential of these farms but in doing so to create employment / business opportunities for his
sons. His eldest son, Arthur Edmund Smith, was then 18 years old and immediately placed as
resident overseer on the farms, which in time would come to be known collectively as
Smith’s Farm (89) .

A development that would have far reaching affect on the fortunes of surrounding subsistence
farmers was the extension of the railway line to Simon’s Town in 1890. While good news for
the town itself, this development dealt a serious blow to many farmers in this district who
found that much of what they produced could now be more cost-effectively imported from
further afield. What had been a precarious existence for many before now became untenable
and so they abandoned the land, or else stayed on as simply subsistence farmers. A select few

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