Kenhardt, viewed from the War Memorial.
© Robert I. Sadler, 2004
Expansion northwards from the Cape since 1680 stopped at the Hantam (Calvinia) region due to lack of water. Kenhardt and its surrounds became incorporated in the Colony only in 1847.
Farmers were harassed by Bushmen and Hottentots living in the region and in 1863 Louis Anthing, the first magistrate, visited the area to find a solution to the problem. He suggested giving the Bushmen goats to farm with, stillborn advice as the Bushmen were hunters, not stockmen. One of his other ideas was more viable - he officially gave Kenhardt its name.
“It is the name by which the place is generally known in these parts and is easily pronounced although at present I am unacquainted with the significance or derivation of the word
,” he reported.
The origin of the name remains a mystery to this day even though many theories have been put forward. Nonetheless, eventually the two little shacks Anthing in his free time erected on the bank of the Hartebeest River grew into a serviceable little town, although not without some turbulence. When on the 27th of October 1868 special Magistrate M.J. Jackson reached Kenhardt with 50 mounted policemen to quell the Korana uprising, he found Anthing’s buildings and used them as nucleus for his police post. (In relation to present-day Kenhardt the buildings were situated thus: the first at the foot of the hill east of where the Brandvlei road enters the town and the second, consisting of only one room, east of the Dutch Reformed Church. Neither of these buildings has survived - the last one, the old Charge Office, was only lately demolished and replaced with the new police buildings.)
The troops set up camp at the old camelthorn tree still standing in what is now Gibbon Street. They suffered utter privation as water was scarce and there was no grazing for the horses, which soon started dying of starvation. Not effective in their efforts to submit the warring Korana, the record of the Northern Border Police is a dismal one and the post at Kenhardt not exactly the embodiment of military efficiency. During the second Korana War they were reduced to 25 men and combined with the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police under Inspector D.B. Hook.
After the wars Kenhardt remained a police post and gradually evolved into a village of town houses where the farmers of the district spent weekends to go to church and buy provisions. Then came the shops, the hotel, the schools - soon Kenhardt was established as one of those in indispensable country towns which were the backbone of the rural economy.
Mail was fetched once a week from De Aar.
In 1892 the Divisional Council of Kenhardt was proclaimed.
In 1897 the first library came into being.
One of Kenhardt’s highlights in world history was when in 1929 Malcolm Campbell in his Bluebird attempted to set the speed record on nearby Verneukpan.
Today this small town in the vast expanse of Bushmanland is known for dorper sheep farming, a unique quiver tree forest and Bushmen paintings. Also, students of history will delight in the beautiful physiognomy of the local people, some of them seemingly untouched by the passage of centuries.