page_title: Eerste Pastorie Winburg
section_title: 19th-century
hierarchical_section_title: Eerste Pastorie Winburg / History / 19th-century
caption_attribution_description: English: Ds Van Velden Portrait
context_page_description: The Eerste Pastorie was built in 1850 in the newly formed town of Winburg in the Orange Free State of South Africa. It was a house built for the Dutch Reformed Church's pastor or predikant.
context_section_description: In 1848, regular church services started being held in Winburg and the Church Council authorized the building of a church. A pastor, ds Dirk Van Velden, was appointed and he was to arrive in Winburg in September 1850 from Holland.
  At the May 1850 Church Council meeting, the building of a house for ds Van Velden was tabled. It was to be built with the best building materials and with a roof of  Tambookie grass. The house was built with 50 loads of stone and 40 000 bricks. Yellowwood planks and trusses were brought from the Cape by oxcart for the floors and roof.
  When Van Velden arrived, the house was not complete and he and his wife with five children had to live for eight months in the church's backroom. Van Velden and his family lived in the Eerste Pastorie from mid 1851 to February 1854, during which time they recorded the first two births in the house, a daughter and a son.
  Van Velden was reassigned to Ladismith in the Cape and a replacement in Winburg was not appointed until 1861. It is not known what use was made of the house during the vacancy,  Predikants from neighboring towns likely used it during their visits.
  When H Van Broekhuizen was appointed in 1861, the town was paralyzed with drought and the church was in serious debt. His five years in Winburg were not easy as the politics of the time were difficult and led to the  Basuto Wars in 1865. Owing to bad health, he left Winburg in April 1866. To the Pastorie's benefit, the grass roof, which was leaking during the rainy season, was repaired in 1863.
  A short vacancy followed, but in July 1867, Pieter Adriaan Coenraad van Heyningen from Kroonstad was appointed as the third Predikant. He held this position in Winburg until December 1893. During his time the town and congregation grew.
  His family also grew, and in 1882 numbered nine children. The old building was also having greater problems with damp in the foundations, and in 1882 was taken down and rebuilt on higher foundations. A larger house with a dressed sandstone walls was built. ds Van Heyningen's youngest daughter, Caroline laid the Hoeksteen at a ceremony on 9 March 1882. She tells the story in her memoirs written when she was 80 years old, as well as many insightful tales of goings on in the Pastorie during her childhood.
  The Predikant was possibly the most important man in the community and hosted important visitors from all over the world, both in Church matters and political matters. [[Francis William Reitz | President Reitz] of the Orange Free State was a regular visitor staying the Pastorie.
  Van Heyningen returned to Holland when he retired, but did return to South Africa to visit his children and was caught up in the  Anglo Boer War, resulting in him being incarcerated in Norval Point Concentration Camp.
  In 1894, Jacobus Johannes Tier Marquard accepted the call to Winburg and took up residence in the Pastorie with his wife Margaret and his three children, Maria, John and Andrew. Three further children were born during his time in Winburg, Louise, Leopold and David. The Marquards lived through the Anglo Boer War in the Pastorie.
  At the time of his appointment in 1894, Winburg had over 3000 residents, the Free State numbered over 100 000. The town was about to celebrate the arrival of the first train, in 1898. Church Council approved the building of a new church and the Hoeksteen was laid by OFS  President M T Steyn on 20 January 1899.
  But the specter of war hung over all these achievements. When it was declared on 12 October 1899, turmoil spread throughout the town. Commandos left for both Ladysmith in Natal and to Kimberley. Initial Boer successes were followed by advance on Bloemfontein in March 1900 by the British. The Free State was occupied from then on.
caption: ds Dirk Van Velden
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