Samuel Christian George Wemmer

Born: 28 Mar 1846, Cradock, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Marriage (1): Martha Helena Hartogh
Died: 23 Oct 1903, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa aged 57
Buried: Johannesburg, Transvaal, South Africa

Family Links

Spouses/Children:

1. Martha Helena Hartogh

(+ Shows person has known children.)

bullet Birth Notes:

http://www.eggsa.org/library/main.php?g2_itemId=92325

And

http://www.geni.com/people/Samuel-Christiaan-George-Wimmer/6000000026504651089

And

http://www.myheritage.com/site-family-tree-141239062/verster-stamboom-in-sa?familyTreeID=1&rootIndivudalID=1026631#!profile-1026631-info

bullet Death Notes:

bullet Burial Notes:

http://www.eggsa.org/library/main.php?g2_itemId=92325

bullet Sources of information or noted events in his life were:

• Web Based Info. http://www.eggsa.org/library/main.php?g2_itemId=92325

• General Comment. Not finally proven. They are buried in the same grave and the timeline fits perfectly.

• General Comment. Wemmer, Samuel Christiaan Georg (Sam)

(*Cradock, CC, 28.3.1846 - †Johannesburg, October 1903), early mining prospector, was the son of Samuel Christiaan Wimmer (Wemmer) and his wife, Suzanna Johanna Maria Verster.

In 1869 W. was active on the Kimberley diamond-fields where in partnership with Col I. P. Ferreira he bought the Colesberg Koppie for £7 and together they were said to have pegged out a large part of the old De Beers Mine and Dutoitspan. Forced to abandon these valuable claims as they had not secured a proper legal title to them, the partners moved to Middelburg in the Eastern Transvaal; here W. established himself as a businessman, but also prospected for gold at Pilgrim's Rest and from 1882 was active in the De Kaap fields. Towards the end of May 1886, when news of the discovery of gold-bearing reef on the Witwatersrand reached them, they decided to go there.

On Ras Reef during November - December 1886 W. and G. H. Goch erected a two-stamp battery, the first to be set up on the Witwatersrand after the discovery of the main reef series. The Wemmer Gold Mining Company Limited, with E. Hancock as one of its founders, was established on the farm Turffontein, and was registered in the Cape Colony in July 1887 with an initial capital of £12 000. Goch was the first chairman of the board, but W. did not serve on the directorate. On 14.2.1888 the first run of a five-stamp battery (the Moss Rose Battery) at Wemmer Mine took place, and at the beginning of March 300 ounces of gold were produced by it.

The leading mining house of H. Eckstein & Co. acquired holdings in the Wemmer Mining Company Limited in the 1890s and the old Wemmer Mine was absorbed by the Village Main Reef Gold Mining Company Limited in 1906. The mine brought W. little profit and he died in great poverty.

On 29.1.1919 the township of Wemmer was approved and established on the Wemmer section of the property of the Village Main Reef Gold Mining Company, which was by now considered unprofitable as a gold-mine. The Wemmer Jubilee Road, running from Eloff Street Extension, and Wemmer Pan, a well-known aquatic venue south of Village Deep and north of La Rochelle, bear his name. Also of interest is the fact that W. was present at the meeting on 23.7.1887 to establish the first school in Johannesburg.

He married Martha Helena Hartogh, but it is not known how many children they had. W.'s wife secured the first trading licence for a wayside hotel, granted by the landdros of Heidelberg on 24.7.1886. She was one of the first three women to arrive on the Witwatersrand gold-fields. A photograph of Mrs Wemmer appears in Shorten (infra).

R. and N. MUSIKER

http://www.myheritage.com/site-family-tree-141239062/verster-stamboom-in-sa?familyTreeID=1&rootIndivudalID=1026631#!profile-1026631-info

• Children. In a Johannesburg Newspaper dated 16 Aug 1929 the following appeared (which says she had 13 children):

Mrs. Sam WEMMER, the first European woman to reach the Witwatersrand goldfields yesterday celebrated her eighty-first birthday. Mrs. WEMMER, who is a stepdaughter of President PRETORIUS, has thirteen children, 43 grandchildren, and 28 greatgrandchildren. In honour of the occassion Mrs. WEMMER was presented with a huge birthday cake by the Rand Pioneers Club.

http://www.myheritage.com/site-family-tree-141239062/verster-stamboom-in-sa?familyTreeID=1&rootIndivudalID=1026631#!profile-1026631-info

Samuel married Martha Helena Hartogh. (Martha Helena Hartogh was born on 15 Aug 1848 in Villiersdorp, Cape Province, South Africa and died on 26 Feb 1933 in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa.)

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There will inevitably be errors and omissions and the whole purpose of creating this online record, is to invite feedback and corrections.
The data is specifically for non-commercial use and my clear intention is to build family records. The data may, therefore, not be used in any way for the purposes of financial gain.

Caveat:- Throughout the project UK GRO birth, marriage and death index data appears. The GRO data appears in Quarters. Q1 = January, February and March, Q2 = April, May, June , Q3 = July, August and September and Q4 = October, November and December. Similarly, Mar Q = January, February and March, Jun Q = April, May, June , Sep Q = July, August and September and Dec Q = October, November and December. Where these dates occur, they represent the date of Registration of the event rather than the date of the actual event. Logically, registration occurs AFTER the event. In some cases this may be days or months or even years after the event. The important thing is that the event was recorded and a copy of the document of registration could be obtained if necessary. This also applies to South African NAAIRS records.

Similarly, the UK system is confusing to the uninitiated because registration districts can span several counties. Accordingly GRO locations may not record the true location of the event. They do record where the record is actually kept or recorded.

Caveat #2:- I have used URL's throughout the website as sources. The URLs are often from paid subscription sites so you may not be able to access them without an account. Inevitably there are broken URL's. I have been to every URL recorded here and at the time they were operational. In this regard, the Ancestry24 records are a problem. There are numerous references in the South African data citing Ancestry24 records. Unfortunately Ancestry24 has closed down and these records are no longer available on line.

The early South African records on this site would not have been as good as they are without the work done by Delia Robertson. Where there are website addresses containing http://www.e-family.co.za... I record the citation should read Robertson, Delia. The First Fifty Years Project. This website can be found at First Fifty Years