DE BEER's AND SEVEN'th DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH

Pastor Henry Baptiste of the Seven'th Day Adventist Church in Kimberley showed their original church to me last Saturday to research the connection between the "diamond de Beer-family" and their church and which is now used as a museum to commemorate the very first Seven'th day Adventist Church that was ever established in Africa. (See photo of the church museum in some of the previous publications).

Nicholas J De Beer, who's name was used for the famous DeBeers Diamond Company by Cecil John Rhodes, and his brother, Diderich, were both baptized in the church. Their names as well as Gert de Beer and BP De Beer can be traced in the archives. My own father also have the initials, BP, which stands for Barend Petrus, however, the name on the tombstone of his great grand father, reads BARENT PETRUS. (See previous publications of graves of the De Beers in Petrusburg).

Press clippings of the eldest son of NJ De Beer, who visited the museum at a later stage can be viewed next to a sketch of the original "De Beer-Homestead".  A replica of the homestead was built in the new Big Hole Museum. The Homestead suburb is still evident where the old house use to stand before it was demolished by some ignorant city planners.  Earlier in my Blog, readers can still view the original De Beer-Homestead in one of the photo's that were taken in the nick of time.

Pieter Wessel's name is the most prominent in the church museum.  He donated most of the money to establish the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Africa while the De Beer-family donated also some money.  Together it amounted up to fifty thousand pounds at some stage.  The Helderberg theological school of the church in Cape Town was also initiated with this financial support, while Rhodes himself, donated money to establish an educational centre for the church in Rhodesia (read Zimbabwe).

According to Gerrit Wessels of Boshof, an offspring of the Pieter Wessels-family in Kimberley who donated the money, says that Pieter fell ill and went into the veld to communicate in private with his Creator.  After about a week, he returned home with the message that he is convinced that the Seventh Day is the Sabbath of the Lord and that he has to follow up on that.  He went to the Seventh Day Adventist Day Church in the United States of America and afterwards commenced with the establishment of this church denomination in Africa.

JN De Beer used some of his money that got from Rhodes to buy a farm next to the Vaalriver in the Boshof district in the Orange Free State near the border with Christiana in the Transvaal.  He was also buried on this farm (see previous publications). However, this branch of the De Beer-family has lost their farm soon after NJ De Beer's (senior) death. According to Dirk de Beer, who still farms with potatoes on an adjacent farm, holds the opinion that they donated too much of their money to"some church or other"... Dirk's mother told him that one of the De Beer-sisters, who was married to a wealthy Rooi Afrikaner Cow farmer in the Hoopstad region nearby, a certain Geldenhuys (?), bought the original De Beer-farms back for them to resettle themselves.  Dirk and his brother started with potatoes, however, his brother lost his part of the farm--where the NJ De Beer grave rests--and is currently owned by somebody else...  Fortunately, Dirk and his two sons are still running an extremely well managed potato farm next to the original De Beer-farm.

But as Dirk de Beer recalls, nobody of the old "diamond de Beer" family really benefited from the cash that Rhodes gave them. Pastor Baptiste also reminded me that Rhodes also traded other farms and land to consolidate his diamond mines.