Matthys Stephanus Booyens (Died 3 November 1871)

We find Matthys Stephanus and his wife Helena Aletta du Plessis at Keurfontein farm at the time of the baptism of their first child, Matthys Andries, in 1814. This is also where Matthys' older brother Pieter Johannes is at this time. The farm is near Towerwater Poort in the Swartberg.

In their time, the only way through the Outeniqua Mountains is via Attaqua's Poort, which is to the west of the 21st Century road between Oudtshoorn and Mossel Bay. This is a difficult trip by oxwagon. One can only imagine travelling first down the Olifants River with its much lamented multitude of drifts (fords), then across semi-desert country to the Outeniqua mountains, then through the rugged Attaqua's Poort, and then--frustratingly--back east through the deeply rolling countryside to George. Postponing the trip until there are enough pending baptisms in the family seems pragmatic. Indeed, three Booyens siblings baptize children on 13 February 1814 in George.

When his oldest brother, Pieter Johannes, baptizes his second daughter Susanna Elizabeth on 5 October 1817 in George, Matthys Stephanus and his wife are witnesses. The baptism entry for the event lists him as now being from the Uitenhage district to the east [#1]. The Uitenhage parish is founded in that same year of 1817. The picture below shows the distinctive Candelabra Tree and aloe vegetation of the district.

Matthys' later children are baptized at various places in the Southeast Cape, including Grahamstown and Uitenhage. Most interestingly, he baptises his fourth child, Anna, in the Anglican Church in Grahamstown. This is a cultural "first" in the Booyens bloodline. We have no explanation why he baptizes there, rather far to the east. It may have been a baptism by a roving minister. The 1823 entry in the Grahamstown Baptism Book states that the family is living in "Graff Reynett". Since these men are farmers, the statement means he is a farmer from the mentioned district. His youngest brother will baptise extensively in the Anglican Church in Grahamstown.

Matthys and Helena initially have the two sons already mentioned, and then follows a string of girls for the next fifteen years. When his seventh and last child from his marriage to Helena is born in 1830, Matthys is stated to be in the George District, which, at the time, stretches eastward through the interior to beyond Schilpadbeen. However, we know that Matthys Stephanus treks to the Orange Free State at some point in the next 15 years, because he serves as witness to a baptism by his daughter Anna Magdalena at Winburg on 21 December 1845 [#2]. On 19 September 1847 Matthys and Isabella are witnesses to the first baptism by son Pieter Adriaan. The baptism is entered in the books of the Colesberg Parish of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Cape Colony [#3]. However, the entry states "Over de Grensen". So the baptism is actrually physically somewhere in the southern Free State. By 7 May 1849, his eldest son Matthys Andries is baptizing children in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State [#4] and so is his daughter Isabella Maria, as may be seen some two double pages earlier in the same book. Matthys and his wife Helena Aletta are there as witness to the baptism by Isabella. The granddaughter is named for Helena Aletta.

Matthys briefly features in Chapter 9 of the book AmaBhulu.

Helena dies on 30 August 1857. Twenty months later, at the age of 71, he marries the 17-year old Susanna Catharina van den Berg in Bloemfontein. At this time he resides on the farm Vierfontein and is described as a cattle rancher ("Veeboer").

The young Susanna gives him six more children, the last of whom is just two weeks old when Matthys dies at the age of 83 on Kliprivier in the Bloemfontein District. Matthys Stephanus' descendants will form the backbone of the Booyens population of the Orange Free State. The descendants of his eldest son, Matthys Andries, will later gravitate to the Standerton area of the Transvaal. The descendants of his second son, Pieter Adriaan, will populate the triangle defined by Smithfield, Bloemfontein, and Ladybrand in the Southeastern Free State. Some of them will later move to the Heilbron region.

Matthys' son, Barend Matthys Johannes, born out of the second marriage, will fight in the Second Anglo-Boer War. He will eventually die in 1948. Amazingly, (a) Barend's grandfather, Mattheus, was born in 1750; (b) Barend's father, Matthys Stephanus, was born in 1788, before George Washington became the first president of the United States, and (c) Barend will live to see heavier-than-air flight and the nuclear bomb. In just three generations, the Booyens family will span history from the Industrial Revolution to the Atom Bomb. Barend's own father, Matthys Stephanus, could tell him about how the British took the Cape when he was a seven-year-old boy in 1795.

For the references, see below^#