Written by Ray Pitt

It's a very long journey from South Africa's Eastern Cape Province to central Queensland Australia, but then it's a journey that had probable been pre ordained a very long time ago by forgotten circumstances that have now been lost in the mists of time. But if we listen very carefully we can still hear echoes whispering faintly to us from those far off days.
I suppose it all started with our earliest know ancestor, George Pitt, and his brave or perhaps even desperate decision to step out into the unknown by leaving all that he had held dear back at home in Ireland.
Just why exactly George Pitt took that giant leap of faith and applied to travel and settle in the frontier region of the then Cape colony is still something of a mystery. A Mystery that we will probably never really fully solve. However, we will linger here a while and see how the story unfolds.
Like many Family members before me, I only looked back at the past when most of the people that were part of my early life had pasted on. And like some I cursed my lack of foresight and interest into these matters for it had now destined me to try and search out all those answers without the surety of any personal accounts or experiences
If only, if only…… Those two words mock me still. Had I only talked to those people that had all the answers to my questions how easy my quest would may have been but now they are no longer with us and with them have gone all the answers. All that remains to me now are the questions. The answers to which I must now rediscover for myself.
So scant are the details available to us that George's present day descendants really have very few hard documented facts to go on. Even so, what documents there are can help us answer some questions if not all. If we stop and ask ourselves "What did this man look like or what sort of personality did he have, was he tall or was he short? " then we can safely assume that answers to those questions are permanently lost to us. That, in itself, is for me at least, a reason for carrying on the research. I may well be seen as tilting at windmills in pursuing this obsession but as the elusive facts and stories are teased out of the fabric of the past, ghostly figures start to rematerialise and begin to tell us something of their lives.

So then let's get back to the beginning of our tale and briefly examine the facts as they exist to day. So what do we know of these beginnings? Well it's almost certain that the George Pitt who came to South Africa all those years ago was born in 1833 but just where his birthplace was is still a mystery. The first hard facts known about him tell us that in November 1856 the 1003 ton sailing ship Vocalist dropped anchor in Algo Bay and unloaded a group of new English settlers who were destined to be taken to locations all around the then frontier areas of the Eastern Cape. Among these hardy folk was a certain George Pitt; a young man aged 23 years who was a Plasterer and stonemason by profession. It is stated in the official documentation that he was a native of Limerick in Ireland but whether or not he was an Irishman by decent is still not very clear. English and Irish history at this time was both turbulent and tragic. The 1840's saw the terrible effects of the Potato famine in Ireland. Millions of people died of starvation and led to people fleeing the land to try and find a means of survival.
While our man was in all probability a Protestant of possible English descent it is hard not to think that the events of the previous 10 years in Ireland had not been an influence in his decision to immigrate to Africa and start a new life there. After all, hadn't there been settler folk in that part of Africa since 1820 and wasn't there also land enough for all hard working men and woman who had the will to succeed and prosper? To him it must have seemed a land of opportunity with the prospect leaving the poverty of the past behind him.
What do we know of this man? Well we know that he was still a relatively young man when he arrived in Algoa Bay. We also know that he was a trained artisan and it was this more than anything else that would have been a major qualification for him so as to influence his suitability for selection for emigration. We also know that he was still a bachelor when he stepped onto the beach at Algoa Bay. It's also a safe bet that he would have also been an educated man as well but to what extent is still a mystery. Certainly, he could read and write for I have seen his signature on his marriage registration and it's a strong and steady handwriting that spoke of a man of some confidence.
We also know that to become an artisan one had to have a certain level of skill. Read any account of 17th century life and apprenticeship training and you will soon realise that their craft master's did not suffer fools lightly. If you didn't shape up you were soon looking for an alternative means of making a living!
The very first hard facts we have for George Pitt are provided for us in the Book ' Aided immigration to South Africa from Britain 1853 ~ 1863 ' by the author Esme Bull. Contained within the pages of this excellent reference work we find, on page 356, a reference to a certain George Pitt who was one of 293 passengers who departed Liverpool in 1855 aboard the sailing ship Vocalist which was bound for Algoa Bay in South Africa.
This reference also tells us that he had originated from Limerick in Ireland but it doesn't tell us how he came to be in Liverpool when his ship left for the Cape. Had he been in England for some time prior to his departure or had he gone there directly from Ireland? Perhaps somewhere in England in a dark and dusty archive there are documents that contain answers to these tantalising questions just waiting to be discovered by future researcher efforts.
For the next few years, after his arrival in the Eastern Cape, George's movements are unknown but then in 1857 we find him mentioned in the Colonial records telling us of his employment as a constable at the then Katberg convict station during the construction of the Katberg pass between Grahamstown and Fort Beaufort. It's from these same documents that we learn a little more of the man himself. Facts that may have never been know if his better nature not been so obliquely recorded.
It seems that he and a fellow constable had made the conscious decision to make donations to a charitable cause back in England. This in itself was notable in that the actual details of these donations were recorded and can now be found in the State Archives in Cape Town. So we see then that he was a man who gave to others that were not as fortunate as himself.
The next event that has come to light takes place in 1857. It is in this year that he marries Annie Coleman. She, like George, had come out to the Cape to make a life for herself. Again it is in the same reference work Aided immigration to South Africa from Britain 1853 ~ 1863 that we find her mentioned. And Like George she was aided in her passage out under the same immigration scheme that he had used. They were married in the then newly built Anglican Church of St. Barnabus in Grahamstown.
The marriage register, now housed at the Cory library in Grahamstown, tell us that George is now described as being a Plasterer and shopkeeper. However, other than the wedding details, there is no further mention of what he and his new wife did for a living or where abouts they stayed. The witnesses at the ceremony are people that do not reappear in any further records but it does at least shows that the new Pitt family had established a circle of friends and acquaintances in their lives at that time that. It also gives a clue to the future business dealings of his family…. read on!
We now move on to 1865 where we next hear of both George and his wife Annie. Their marriage has by now been blessed by the birth of a son in the summer of 1862. George Charles Pitt junior was born on the 18 of Dec 1862 and he was baptised in the Anglican Church on the 8 of March 1863 in Grahamstown.
We also find out that two daughters were born to George and Annie but strangely we can find no further trace of these children in the official records beyond their births and baptisms.
Certainly no modern-day evidence has yet come to light of their lives or deaths and as such they will have to become the subject of further research at some later date. So, here then are yet another couple of links that are unfortunately still missing from our tale and as sad as that may be, we will have to leave them for now and continue on our journey without them.

In order to understand the situation that these early ancestors found themselves in we have to remember that at that period in the frontier regions these were still troubled times for the peoples of the border areas. Not long before their arrival in the Eastern Cape, conflict between the southward migrating Xhosa tribes and the settlers had been a constant and ever present threat since their earliest meetings. For many years the "Kaffir wars", as they were later know, had been fought principally over land and the ownership of cattle! Or rather, from the settlers point of view, the theft of cattle!
Cattle were to the Xhosa people a prized possession. In fact cattle could be described as a form of currency and also prosperity and represented to them the accumulation of wealth. Traditionally, the raiding of other tribes for the purpose of taking their cattle was a way of life for them and when the English came along they were to them just another tribe who had cattle and therefore were considered fair game.
The settlers however, saw it differently. To them it was out and out theft and as such they treated the matter accordingly. This then led to reprisals against those who stole the settlers stock and in turn the confiscation and forfeiture of the culprits own stock as reparation. To the settlers this was seen as being right and just. Needless to say this was not going to be settled any other way than by force of arms and over the years the resulting wars saw the Xhosa nation finally defeated and subdued and their lands confiscated but not without some cost in lives and property to the new settlers
When our two ancestors settled in the Eastern Cape, the wars were all but over and peace had returned to the land. The frontier now extended to the Winterberg mountains in the west and the Kie River in the north. Towns and villages had sprung up around the forts that had been built by the military during the war years and so places like Peddie, King Williams Town, East London and Queenstown, came into being.
Of all these places Queenstown was to be where our story would continue. For it is here that we find the records of George's son George Charles Pitt.
It is he that now continues the Saga into the next generation. Inexplicably George and Annie seemed to have slipped quietly away into obscurity, as we hear no more of them and like the two daughters born to them the records are obstinately silent. Exactly where their final resting places are to be found remains a mystery to this day and it is hoped that further research may, in time, uncover these details.

Meanwhile, their son had grown up and he had married Magdalena Johanna van Heerden. She was descended from the large van Heerden family of Pieter Willem Van Heerden who has his beginnings back in pre 1730's at the early Dutch settlement of the Cape of Good Hope and even further back to Holland.
The young George Pitt had by now become a farmer and a trader and was living in a district of Queenstown called 'Macibini.' By today's standards Macibini is not very far from the town of Queenstown by road. By all accounts there was not much there at the time but now days a church and school are located there.
The roads you see in the map shown above features relatively modern roads but during the years we are concerned with just getting to and fro between places was a major undertaking in those far off days. The nearest railway access was at Queenstown, so getting your goods to and from market was a task that took a bit of planning and organisation. If the services of a doctor were needed or hospitalisation required for a illness or injury then a long and often rough trip back to Queenstown would have to be endured.
We must remember that this was life at the end of the 1800's. Cars and electricity were still a way of in the future for people in the African bush. We can safely assume that their lives were still stuck in the age of kerosene lamps and candles for lighting and a wood stove for cooking and baking. Personal cleanliness for all the family meant the use of a galvanised washtub in front of the kitchen stove. Clothing had to be washed in a tub and done by hand. Bread and butter were made on the farm and jams and conserves were made when the fruit was in season. Animals were butchered on the farm as well and self-sufficiency was the name of the game.
We know from the church records that many of the children who were born had their baptisms recorded in the Wesleyan Methodist church registers in Queenstown. However, we also see tragedy enter into their lives when we read of the sad death of a young child from whooping cough. We can tell how long they endured the worry and final tragedy when we examine the civil death register entry and then read the church burial register entry. This child was buried on the farm and is not entirely alone in its eternal rest as others joined it in just as melancholy a fashion over the coming years.
George and Magdalena had three sons born to them, Charles, Frederic and George. They also had three daughters, Daisy, Mabel and Jessie all of whom grew up to marry into the Cook, Steele & Bishop families and went on to raise families of their own.
The lives of all the members of the family at that time were filled with all the normal joys and dramas of an early twentieth century family. But in 1918 all that was about to change, for it was in 1918 that a major tragedy was to befall the family. In that year Charles Pitt and his wife Ester were both to become victims of the Spanish Flu and as a result their young children were to be orphaned and left Charles's father a shattered man. Charles had been the eldest son in the family and had, like his father, become a trader and farmer. If one reads George's last will and testament you can't help thinking that George Pitt had at one time wished that his eldest son would have taken over from him and thereby inherit the family business. In those days it was not an unusual occurrence for the eldest son to inherit the family estate and take on the responsibilities of the head of the family. Any tragedy such as this would no doubt have had profound effects on the lives of others in the family.
But this was 1918 and death stalked the land. All around the world, war weary service men were returning to their homes and loved ones from a war-shattered Europe. They had defeated their enemies on the battlefield but they did see the enemy that silently marching along with them. They unwittingly had more than just souvenirs in the 'old kit bag'. An Influenza pandemic had broken out in Europe in 1918 and travelled with them when they were sent home. Wherever it went it struck down all before it. From the cities to the countryside, people fell victim and very few recovered to live another day. One has only to read the death register entries for the years 1918~1919 to realise the enormity and scale of the pandemic. And Queenstown was to be no exception.
The following is a quote taken from a first hand account of the terrible symptoms endured by the influenza victims:-
" As their lungs filled … the patients became short of breath and increasingly cyanotic. After gasping for several hours they became delirious and incontinent, and many died struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth. It was a dreadful business."
--Isaac Starr, 3rd year medical student, University of Pennsylvania, 1918

Out in the Glen Grey district at the homestead then called "Oak Grove"; Charles Herbert Pitt fell ill on the 23rd of October 1918. Incredibly, two days later on the 25th he was dead! And to add to the horror of his death, his wife Ester Margaret Shaw fell ill and died on the 29th of October, four days after her Husband and thus leaving four young children as orphans.