The De Villiers family were among Greyton’s first traders [TBV]. Greyton’s histories say they built a trading store at the village’s original entrance in 1860, a few years after the first plots were sold [TBV]. A later account says Jan de Villiers opened a shop in his home in the 1920s [MS]. This page covers the family as a group, because the records do not yet say which members did what.
What the letters in square brackets mean
Facts on this page are followed by a tag that shows where they come from.
- [IC] Independently Corroborated. Confirmed by at least two sources that do not depend on each other, or by an official record.
- [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from one community’s or organisation’s own sources. For Greyton figures, much of what is told comes from local histories and tourism sources that repeat each other, so they often share one origin.
- [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.
At a glance
| Who | Members of the De Villiers family, including Jan de Villiers [MS] |
| Dates | Trading in Greyton from about 1860, and again in the 1920s [TBV] |
| Known for | Running Greyton’s first shops [TBV] |
| Link to the valley | Part of the trade that made Greyton a working village for farmers and smallholders |
What is known
Greyton was founded as a village of smallholders, with the first plots sold in 1854 [IC]. A village of farmers needed a place to buy what they could not grow and to sell what they could. Greyton’s histories say the De Villiers family built a trading store in 1860 at the village’s original entrance [TBV]. In the same year the Post House was built, as a trading post and lodging for travellers [IC].
A walking guide to Greyton says that Jan de Villiers opened the first shop in his home in the 1920s [MS]. This does not fit easily with a store in 1860. There may have been more than one generation of the family in trade, or the two accounts may describe different shops [TBV].
Other traders followed. The same walking guide says the grandfather of the Osman family came to Greyton in 1920, and that A.G. Osman and Sons moved to its present building in 1934 [MS].
What is still open
- Which member of the family built the store of 1860, and where exactly it stood.
- Whether the store of 1860 and Jan de Villiers’s shop of the 1920s were run by the same family line.
- Whether the De Villiers traders were affected by the Group Areas removals of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
- Whether descendants still live in the valley. The family may hold photographs or account books.
Related
References
- Wikipedia. Greyton. The De Villiers family’s trading store of 1860.
- GoGreyton. Greyton Village Walk. Jan de Villiers’s shop in the 1920s, and the Osman family’s arrival in 1920.
- Viatu. The Post House. The Post House as a trading post and lodging from 1860.