1 minute read
Transport riding
from The Circle Volume 20
by John Stretch
Two years later he managed to obtain the first transport concession to Delagoa Bay in 1875. He built what is now known as the Nellmapius Road, used by transport riders including Percy Fitzpatrick and his dog Jock.
From the Mac-Mac Falls and the goldfields, the road crossed the Crocodile River at Nellmapius Drift near Hectorspruit, before ending in current-day Maputo in Mozambique.
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By then a wealthy man, Nellmapius moved to Pretoria, buying a farm outside the city. He quickly struck up a lifelong friendship with President Paul Kruger and financed a new house for him in Church Street.
Nellmapius was welcome in the President’s home whenever he chose to call.
The Transvaal Republic was short of funds and Nellmapius persuaded Kruger to raise money by selling monopoly concessions to independent businessmen. The Transvaal needed its own industries to produce basic products such as clothing, blankets, flour and sugar, he said. The monopoly businesses would be protected from outsiders by high tariff protection.
