Die verslaggewer aan wie Generaal Christiaan De Wet een van sy min onderhoude toegestaan het...
Upper Karoo Norvalspont History
One of the challenges I face each time I try to choose a topic for this series is to keep the focus firmly on the main area of my interest: that little dot on the map known as Norval’s Pont. At a stretch I look across the Orange to the happenings on neighbouring farms or westward towards Van Wyksfontein where a wealth of local stories is to be found. But every path in these tiny histories eventually lead, inevitably, to those dark days at the turn of the Nineteenth Century that we call “The” Anglo Boer War; what the British call The “Great” Boer War; and what was in fact the third conflict that pitted Boer against Brit.
This time I have decided to grasp the nettle and see just how much of this awful conflict I could reduce to “local news”. After all, interested readers can surf the interweb and find all about the Bloemfontein Conference or wade through Thomas Pakenham’s mighty tome and find everything needed to understand the “big picture”. This month’s offering is, as best as I have been able, the “small picture”: Norval’s Pont, October 11th, 1899.
Last time, we left Mrs Norval busy digging out hidey holes under the shearing shed for her prized possessions while the Burgher Army laid up stout planks of wood on the railway track of the bridge and rolled guns, loaded munitions and supply wagons across the Orange in a frantic dash to secure Colesberg. Despite intelligence received, not a single Imperial Trooper was there to greet them. Despite all the fears expressed by the railwaymen in the locomotive yard earlier in the month, not a shot was fired nor was a hair on anyone’s head harmed. At around three in the afternoon on the eleventh of October, Norval’s Pont Bridge village became the newest part of the Orange Free State without a whimper, and the Great Boer War had begun; this being the very first hostile act of the very first day of the conflict, briefly celebrated, I understand, with a few toots at the Glasgow Pont Hotel and the commandeering of a flock of sheep to supplement the commandos’ rations.
Next time: Big Bang at the Bridge!
Article courtesy of Rod Mann, Owner of the 'Pont, 2005 - 2010
Die verslaggewer aan wie Generaal Christiaan De Wet een van sy min onderhoude toegestaan het...
Toe die Koning (of Koningin) se troepe oorspronklik uit Brittanje weg is om die Britse...
Terwyl ons almal die idee van wilde, bebaarde Kommando-lede met vol bandoliere het, was daar...
Skape wat gedurende die Boere Oorlog by Norvals Pont gebuit is, is geslag en gaargemaak...
Among the many who plied their trade and wares around the ferry point at Norval’s...
Lord Harry Smith met his wife during the Peninsular wars and brought this lovely Spanish...
While we all carry firm images of wild looking, bearded Kommando’s in bandolier-ed splendor there...
When the soldiers of the Queen (or King) first set out to win an Empire,...
Die befaamde "Heer" Harry Smith het 'n pragtige Spaanse bruid gehad, wat hy saam met...
The correspondent to whom General Christiaan De Wet gave interview after the war was none...
The sheep taken at Norval’s Pont during the War were despatched and cooked under the...
Die Pont by Norvalspont het verskeie interessante persone gesien gedurende sy lang geskiedenis. Een van...
