This morning a quick Geocaching outing took me to a small park in Fernglen where I found an equally small monument located to the one side of the park. The monument stated:
IN MEMORY OF
JOHN PARKIN
1787 - 1856
LEADER OF A PARTY OF SETTLERS
FROM DEVON TO SOUTH AFRICA IN 1820,
AND PROMINENT IN THE EARLY
DEVELOPMENT OF PORT ELIZABETH
THE SUBURBS IN THIS AREA
STAND ON WHAT WAS ONCE
JOHN PARKIN'S FARM OF 1421 H.A.
WHICH HE ACQUIRED IN 1826.
I never knew this little monument was here not that the suburbs in the area (probably Fernglen, Sunridge Park and Framesby) is located on what was once a Settler farm. Just shows once again that there are still things in Port Elizabeth even I haven't discovered and how big a role Geocaching can play in discovering these places.
You can see how dry it is in Port Elizabeth at the moment by looking at the grass. Brown and dry.
Wow, makes me so proud to be a descendant
ReplyDeleteMy goodness. This was my great great grandfather.
ReplyDeleteClifford Clarkson is my name.
ReplyDeleteSo glad to see that there is something, albeit small, still there to remind us. I am a descendant of the 1820 settlers but not John Parkin
ReplyDeleteGreat to know that people went to the effort of placing a neat little monument like this and that it still stands
ReplyDeleteThank you. John Parkin was my my 3 x great grandfather. His son Robert Parkin, 2 years old on arrival in 1820, married a Boeremeisie in 1844 and trekked to the Free State. Robert's son, my great grandfather, named Christiaan Jacobus Parkin,(Boer enough for you?), died the year before I was born, but I personally knew his wife, my great grandmother Susara Susanna Magdalena (ne Vermaak)
ReplyDeleteGreat to see. He was my X2 GGF. My mother was the only child of Kathleen Parkin & Harry Williams, Kathleen was the only child of Thomas Parkin & Rebecca Tunbridge. Thomas was the 4th & last child of John’s 2nd marriage. I’ve continued my mothers research which she started in the 1980s. Unfortunately she is no longer with us to see this.
ReplyDelete