| Notes |
- Alternative date: 12.5.1701
Alternative location: Drakenstein(Paarl).
http://www.ballfamilyrecords.co.uk/burger/I261.html
Died circa April 1701, (assumed from date of inventory)
Maria was 'n Franse Hugenoot van Calais; x Charles Prevot (Provo); xx 29.8.1688 Hendrik Eekhoff van Essen; xxx 19.10.1692 Louis de Peronne van Nazereth. In die monsterrolle van 1696 word sy as weduwee aangegee. Haar laaste huwelik was met Hercule du Preez, 'n man veel jonger as haarself.
Under van der Merwe, Pama Vol 2 spells her surname "Lefre", under Vivier, Vol 3 he spells it "le Fre".
du Plooy.paf: Under van der Merwe, Pama Vol 2 spells her surname "Lefé¨bre", under Vivier, Vol 3 he spells it "le Fé¨bre".
This is the story of how one woman presided as mistress over a piece of land in Drakenstein as it passed between three otherwise unrelated free burgers.
Marie LE FEBRE was born in about 1651, the daughter of David le Fevre and Elisabeth le Bleu of Marck, near Calais in northern Picardy. She was married on 8 October 1673 in the Huguenot temple of Guines, south of Calais, to Charles Prevost, a master wheelwright from the village of Dombroy.
Between 1675 - 1653 she presented Charles with two sons and three daughters, all born in or near Marck, and she was again pregnand when, together with her husband, surviving son and two daughters, she set sail on 19 February 1658 aboard the Dutch East Indianian Schelde, bound for the Cape of Good Hope.
After a storm-tossed journey of more than three months duration they reached Table Bay on 29 May, on which day Marie was delivered of a son. The family finally disembarked on Saturday, 5 June, but Charles did not long survive the voyage. He died in July 1688.
Alone and destitute in a strange land, nursing an infant and caring for three small children , it is easy to understand how Marie could be remarried - with almost indecent haste - on 20 August 1688. Her second husband was a German, Heinrich Eckhoff from Essen in the Rhineland . Heinrich had arrived at the Cape as a soldier in the Company's employ a few years previously, in 1684, served in the garrison for three years, and then taken his discharge to become a free burger in December, 1657. Whether he was already farming in Drakenstein at the time of his marriage is unknown, but as we will see, there is firm evidence to show that he and Marie acquired land there from which they derived a meagre living. Fortunately, despite her marriage, Marie continued to be regardcd as one of "the poor French fugilives" , so that, when at length, after careful investigation of their individual needs, some much-needed charity from the poor fund in Batavia was distributed among the Huguenots during April 1690, she was awarded the not inconsiderable amount of 450 rixdollars (1 350 guildens). De spite her tribulations and her age, it was at about this time too that she bore Heinrich a son, whom they called Matthys Hendrik.
Then, in 1692, Eckhoff died. A rough inventory and valuation of the estate was drawn up on 19 August 1692 by two neighbouring farmers, Willem Schalk van der Merwe and Ary Dirksz Lecrevent [alias "Lekkerwyn"]. The document disclosed a house, some ploughed land which had been sown with eight bags of wheat and a bag of rye, other land which was lying fallow, as well as eight working and two untrained oxen, four cows and five calves, 150 sheep and a horse. All this, together with the household furniture and effects, was valued at 2 200 guilders, but there were debts amounting to 1 300 guilders, leaving a net worth of only 900 guilders. Marie signed the document with a rough lower case "f". Once more the widow wasted no time. Two months to the day after the inventory was taken, on 19 October 1692, she was remarried. Her third husband, Louis de Peronne, came from Nazareth, though to be the village by that name situated south west of Ghent in Flanders . Like Eckhoff he was brought to the Cape as a soldier, arriving in 1687 aboard the Eemland and serving in the garrison for three or four years. For a time he worked as a shepherd, but then his fortunes changed. By marrying Marie in community of property under the laws of the colony then prevailing he became master of all she possessed, which included the Eckhoff farm in Drakenstein. He could have had better luck or been more skilled than Eckhoff, or he may have relied on his wife's long experience of her land, for De Peronne was able to build up their herd and lay out a vineyard. In 1695, the year before his own death, he reported to the authorities that he possessed 35 head of cattle, 150 sheep, six pigs, and 7000 vines. He had sown three bags of wheat and harvested nine. He may also have had more energy than his predecessor for he gave Marie two more children, a daughter, Maria, and a son, Bernardus.
Like Eckhoff, however, Louis would live only four years after marrying Marie. Following his death, sometime 1696, an inventory of their joint estate was drawn up by the Orphan Chamber, which was completed and signed on 26 January 1697. Their gross assets amounted to 4 120 guildens, made up as follows: a farm situated in Drakenstein, occupied by the widow, with some farming equipment, valued at f 2 500 30 head of cattle, full-grown and immature, at f30 each 900
100 sheep, full-grown and immature, at f3 each 300 a horse and foal 120
household furniture 300 against which were set off debts of 700 guilders, leaving a net estate of 3 920 guilders. Once again Marie signed the document with a simple "f".
Widowed for the third time and now in her mid-forties, Marie seems to have been determined to find a mate who would outlive her. So it was that she chose as her fourth and last husband a man who, though considerably her junior in years, was nevertheless an old friend - Hercules des Pres. Hercules was born in Europe in about 1672 and emigrated to the Cape with his parents in 1688. The Des Pres family took ship for the Cape aboard the Schelde, where they met and become extremely well-acquainted with their fellow passengers Marie, her husband and children. Hercules' sister Elisabeth des Pres acted as witness at the baptism of Marie's son Jacob , which took place aboard ship, and his brother Phillipe des Pres married Marie's daughter Elisabeth.
This long-established and complex relationship, coupled with the fact that she owned a farm perhaps explains Hercules' devotion to Marie. Their union was childless. The new man in Marie's life was young, as we have seen. He was also energetic and ambitious. Not only did he continue to expand her agricultural asset base, but in addition he added to her lands when, on 4 September 1699, he took transfer of a 60 morgen farm in Drakenstein, "west of the Berg River" , from Gerrit Jansz van Deventer, and in so doing made a handsome contribution to future confusion. It needs to be restated at this point that Marie, by virtue of her marriage to Eckhoff , had become mistress of an unnamed property in Drakenstein, referred to in the inventory dated 19 August 1692 as consisting of a house and fields. When De Peronne married her he simply assumed ownership of this land, and after his death, it was noted in the inventory dated 26 January 1697 as a farm situated in Drakenstein, worth 2 500 guilders. It is this property which Marie would have brought to Des Pres when she married him. It appears, however, that no formal deed was ever issued to confirm their title.
The additional ground which Hercules acquired in 1699 was first granted on 25 October 1692 to one Roelof van Wyk, who transferred it to Van Deventer on 23 March 1694. In all likelihood it shared boundaries with Marie's farm. Fleeing religious persecution, switching from the familiarity of the Calaisis to the wilds of Drakenstein, making homes for four different men and being brought to bed nine times, Marie's life must have been full and exhausting. We do not know exactly when she died, but when the opgaaf of Drakenstein was taken during 1700, Hercules was shown as a single man, and an inventory of the couple's joint estate was finalised by the Orphan Chamber in May 1701. The Orphan Masters' valuation of the estate assets-which aggravates the difficulty of establishing exactly what ground Marie and Hercules farmed - amounted to a total of 9 242 guilders:
3 pieces of land situated in Drakenstein, of which two lack title deeds, valued all together at f3 000.
75 head of cattle, small and large at 30 guilders each 2 250.
200 sheep, small and large at 3 guilders each 600
6 horses, good and bad, at 67 guilders each 402
a slave valued at 300 guilders 300
to corn found 600
to wine and casks, together 690
to some household effects, valued at 400
After deduction of liabilities totalling slightly more than 5054 guilders, the net estate was found to amount to 4 187 guilders. Marie's genetic inheritance was spread throughout the small settler community, in the veins of more than 40 grandchildren (the last of whom was only born in 1736), belonging to the Prevost, Van der Merwe, Des Pres, Eckhoff, Mostert and Brits families. Her toughness and persistence demand to be remembered today, in a world in which so many enjoy and take for granted privileges and technological advances which would have been beyond her wildest imaginings.
Janet's notes said, '..van Marcq by Calais, d.v. David le Febre en Elisabeth le Bleu...'
http://www.ballfamilyrecords.co.uk/burger/I261.html
The details of her parents and her Prevot children come from the Church registers of the Protestant Church at Guines, near Calais, as transcribed by W. Minet and W.C. Walter, 1891, and recorded in the book by C. G. Botha: The French Refugees at the Cape, 1919, and the article by M. Boucher, The Cape Huguenots from the
Calaisis, in Familia vol.12 no.1, 1975, p.6-17.
In a list of April 1690 she is listed as the wife of Henrik Eekhoff, with four children. G.M.Theal, Chronicles of Cape Commanders, Cape Town, W.A.Richards & Son, Castle Street, 1886m, page 286.
In the Muster Rolls of 1692, as the wife of Louis de Pieromme, still with four children. Muster Rolls, VC39, part 3, p.121, 1692
In the statement of accounts drawn up after the death of her third husband, Louis de Peronne, and dated 26 January 1697, she is said to have six children, three by her first husband Charles Pruvo, one by her second husband Hendrik Eekhof, and two by her third. Their names are not given.
The inventory of goods drawn up after her death in 1701 lists the names of all six surviving children: Abraham Pruvo, Elizabeth Pruvo, Anna Pruvo, Matthijs Hendrik Eeckhout, Bernardus de Peronne and Maria de Peronne.
Marie arrived in the Cape in 1688 on the ship "De Schelde".
Vosmaer, 1696 - 10 refugees. Only 5 survived,
Jacques Bisseux (Bisseau) of Picardie
Pierre Bisseux (Bisseau) of Picardie
Paul le Febvre, Champagne
Marie Le Febvre
Elizabeth Sezille [47, 49, 58]
Died:
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1651 - 1712 (61 years)
[3, 14, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57] 