The Wheelan and Lourens families of South Africa:Information about Catharina Hostings
Catharina Hostings (b. 1641, d. date unknown)
Notes for Catharina Hostings:
Lourens Stamouer Anna Elizabeth Michiels was the daughter of Matthys Michielsz from Glueckstadt in Holstein, who married on 28 Jan 1680 the intrepid Catharina Hostings (Ustinghs) from Lubeck. Tryn had arrived on the sickly ship Hof Van Zeeland in the Cape in 1662 as a young widow aged 21, just over ten years after Jan van Riebeeck founded the settlement. Matthys was Catharina's fifth husband. She became well known as Tryn Ras after marrying Hans Ras from Angelen who survived a traumatic stabbing by a guest on his wedding day, in what may have been the first recorded traffic accident and road rage in the Cape, only to be mauled to death by a lion. Her next husband Francois Champelear from Ghent was killed by Hottentots while on a hunting expedition. The fourth, Laurens Cornelissen from Gothenberg was reported by Commissioner Baron van Rheede tot Drakenstein to have been killed by an elephant while hunting hippo.
Tryn was then in desperate straits, reduced to keeping her family on a monthly rice ration supplied by the Company: an early version of social security. After squatting in Constantia, her energy and luck turned for the better when she was generously granted a freehold property in that vicinity in her own name by Simon van der Stel. This later became known as the great Steenberg Estate, on which she prospered. By 1692 the estate had developed significantly. It then supported 8,000 vines, 600 sheep, 140 other livestock, and grew wheat, rye and barley amongst other vegetables - Tryns' fresh cabbages, freshly baked bread and radishes won high praise. So did Tryn herself, though the Commissioner who had earlier enjoyed her meals according to his diary for 30th May 1685, described her determined horse riding to and from the settlement, astride and quite alone, as "terrifying", and her children as wild. One of these, a teenage daughter Maria Ras = 23 Jun 1669 who "could easily have passed for an Egyptian fortune teller" went on to marry Joost Strydom soon thereafter, so becoming the Strydom family stamouer. Little Anna Elizabeth, the future Lourens stamouer, was also amongst these "wild Indians from Brazil" then four years old.
This quite well developed farm Swaaneweide was sold to Frederick Rossouw in 1695, and the Michiels moved to one of their other properties Joostenberg (then Weltevreeden - the book The Old Houses of the Cape, 1965, p 75 is in error on this ownership). Joostenberg was then a modest house, and despite the 12 slaves helping to develop the farm from its native state, she lived a simple lifestyle. After Tryn's death aged 67 in 1708, it was inherited by her son Claas Ras, and on his death by his wife Maria Van Staden. Matthys Michiels then briefly owned Donkerhoek (Durand's Bergen Henegouwen) and Nortier's La Motte in the Drakenstein Valley, before retiring to Stellenbosch in partnership with crippled blacksmith Claas (Vulkaan) Vechtmann in much poorer circumstances, to which he had been no stranger some 35 years previously. He had owned a fishing boat, and in 1712 was helped by being given permission to shoot one load of hippo or other game from the Gouritz river district. Matthys Michiels was in his seventies when he died, apparently in the care of Jan Botma's Snr son Jan and his wife Anna Maria. It is not yet known when Jan Lorentz died: it would have been after 1724.
The Stamouers Jan and Anna Lourens, together with Anna's multi married mother Tryn, thus gave rise to many South African families, including descendents Strydom, Ras, Marx, Edelmann, Snyman, Blom, Lourens, Louwrens, Laurens, and confusingly for a time in the 18th century, also Rostok before that particular family reverted back to the surname Laurens. Matthys Michiels from Glueckstadt has frequently been confused with the contemporary Matthys Michiels from Stockholm, giving rise to numerous and repeated errors in various otherwise authoritative geneology and history books, including Heese and Lombard (1999). This error is well researched (see Margaret Cairns), and need no longer be perpetuated.
More About Catharina Hostings and Matthys Michielsz:
Marriage: 28 Jan 1679/80
Children of Catharina Hostings and Matthys Michielsz are:
- +Anna Elizabeth Michiels, b. 19 Sep 1681, Glueckstadt, Holstein, d. date unknown.