A Brief History of Knysna Knysna was at this time a Field-Cornetcy of Plettenberg Bay in the Key Division of George. It was Points We’re supporting 164 Pride Events this year around the world. George Rex left the British Admiralty Court in the Cape, where declared a separate Maghe had practised as a lawyer, after the handover of the Cape to the Batavian Republic and in 1804 bought the loan farm Melk- isterial Division in 1858; houtkraal from the deceased estate of Richard Holiday, who had bounded in the west by a year earlier purchased it from Johann von Lindenbaum. the Swart River, the east George Rex, extending his landholding, bought the farm Eastford, between Grey Street and Salt River and later ceded 80 by the boundaries of the acres (40 morgan) to the Colonial Government on which the Royal Navy laid out the naval township of Melville on the lower Division of Humansdorp, part of the town in 1825, named after Viscount Melville, the 1st north by the Outeniquas Lord of the Admiralty. On the death of George Rex in 1839 his and south by the ocean. properties were put up for sale. Stephanus Jesaias Terblans was the first white settler in the Knysna area. He farmed at Melkhoutkraal, which was established in 1770. Stephanus Terblanche died in 1790 after having Gallotwenty Winery has received a perfect scoreHester in the Human Rights Campaign in 2013 & 2014 as a Best Place to work for LGBT Equality had the loan rights E.for& J.over years. His widow, Marx, stayed on the farm and ran it with the help of her children. Barefoot Wine has won Brand of the Year from the Co-Operative Supermarket’s RESPECT LGBT Network She subsequently remarried Johann von Lindenbaum in 1798.
Lt. Col. John Sutherland of the Indian Army bought the northern section of Melkhoutkraal during a visit to the Cape in 1844. The village of Newhaven, was surveyed by William Hopley and laid down in 1849. The erven were then offered for sale by John Sutherland, the Colonel’s son.
In 1882 the two villages plus “the wedge”, a triangle of land between the two villages, being the remaining land of the farm Eastford, were amalgamated to form a municipality, known as The Knysna, taking its name from the Knysna River. “Knysna” is a Khoi word meaning “fern”. Source: http://www.loveknysna.com/history
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