Martine Johanna MEHOUSE

Other Events and Attributes:

• Travel: 1920/1; Mrs M J Mills arrival from Rhodesia 22 July 1920, birth 1869. Mrs M J Mills travel back to Cape town with Miss D Mills 7th May 1921, birth 1870 & 1899. Mrs Martine J Mills - 22 Oct 1932 - Travelling from London to Natal. Address noted as The Chalet, Hever, Kent

Notes:

A brief reference in "Northern Rhodesia in the days of the Charter" by M. Gelfand

p 222

"Mrs Freddie Mills was one of the first women to come to the drift with her husband in 1902. She opened a wattle and daub thatched eating house, which proved a blessing to the inhabitants of the settlement, and was greatly respected and loved by all. Later, after Livingstone was surveyed as a township, she and her husband built the Livingstone Hotel -- the first hotel there.

Dr Wilson and Nurse Chapman arrived at the old drift not long after Mrs Mills and opened a nursing home about fifty yards from the river..."

Martine married Frederick William MILLS on 6 Apr 1896 in Bulawayo. Frederick (son of Frederick William GARRETT and Mary Ann ROSE) was born in 1873 in Bermondsey; was christened on 03 Jan 1875 in St. Giles, Camberwell, Southwark; died on 06 Mar 1920 in Livingstone, South Africa of Pleurisy & Pneumonia. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

The City of Livingstone was born on 25 February, 1905, much to the annoyance of the white pioneers who had come to the area. These hardy men and women had settled themselves by the river, 5 km upstream from the Victoria Falls and they felt that a move up to the new Livingstone would be disastrous for trade. The British South African Company (BSAC), who administered this area of Central Africa had, in 1905, completed the Victoria Falls bridge and felt that it was about time to move the pioneers from the mosquito-infested swamplands by the river where the people had lived for the past 10 years. The BSAC had to enforce the edict by giving fines of one shilling per day for anyone who failed to move. Eventually the old settlement was abandoned. There is not much to see at the original site, known as the Old Drift, only some non-indigenous trees and the graves of some of the many who died there. It is now within the Game Park.

The first buildings to be erected at the new Livingstone were made of poles and mud, with tin roofs. The site was high up on a sand ridge in the middle of a forest of teak trees. The railway line had only reached the station, about one km away - quite a distance to walk on the sandy roads. The people were not happy in the new Livingstone and wondered what was to become of them. Then the BSAC decided to move their administrative center from Kalomo to Livingstone. From 1907 to 1935, Livingstone was the capital of North Western Rhodesia, and this was a time of prosperity. It was during these years that many buildings were erected.

We often consider these times as being romantic, and to us it must seem that way, but life was not easy. Water was a continual problem - it had to be pumped up from the Maramba River and bucketed to the houses. The toilets of all the houses were sited at the back of the yards where the bucket brigade using ox-carts came every morning to empty the sanitary buckets. All the roads were deep sand, making a walk of any distance tiresome. A tram-line was laid from town to the railway station and then on to the boat club. Small cabooses were made for people to sit on and they were pushed up and down the hill by servants. Many of the old houses which were built at this time have fallen into a state of disrepair. But some are being lovingly restored and are well worth looking for. In the future if the economy continues to pick up more will be restored and this will enhance the beauty of Livingstone.

http://www.africa-ata.org/livingstone_2.htm



Old Drift Cemetery

This cemetery is now almost the only surviving trace of the first European settlement of Livingstone. It is about one and a half kilometres upstream of the entrance to the Mosi-Oa-Tunya Zoological Park.

The presence of an urban settlement in this area owed to two major factors: the line of the main entry-route from the south into the then North-Western Rhodesia, and the proximity of the Victoria Falls. Prior to the construction of the railway all goods imported into Northwestern Rhodesia were carried by ox - or mule-drawn wagons and ferries across the Zambezi at the point, some nine kilometres upstream of the Victoria Falls, where the river is at its narrowest for some distance. The northern end of this crossing, known as the Old Drift or Sekuti's Drift, (after the Toka chief whose village was then nearby), soon became the first European settlers' town...

The first settler, F.J.Clarke, arrived in 1898 and set himself up as a trader, hotel-keeper and forwarding agent. By 1903 the European population had grown to sixty-eight, including seventeen women and six children. The British South Africa company established an administrative post nearby.

In most years some twenty percent of the settlers died and in 1903 the figure was considerably higher. Many of these early settlers were buried [here]

The railway from Bulawayo reached the south bank of the Zambezi at the Victoria Falls in April, 1904 and ... the bridge was officially opened in September 1903.

As soon as work began on the bridge it was apparent that, with the completion of the railway, the Old Drift would fall into disuse and that the only argument for retaining the Livingstone settlement in that unhealthy spot would fall away.

Married:
From:- Rhodesia's Pioneer Women (1859-1896)
http://rhodesianheritage.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/rhodesias-pioneer-women-1859-1896.html

"MRS. MILL, 1896
Née Martine Johanna Mehouse. The registration of her marriage is to be found in the C.A.(Central African) Archives, Salisbury. Married in Bulawayo, 6th April, 1896. Mr. F. W. Mill was a steward."
Maybe an American lady ?
Was the Steward FW Mill, Freddies father, Frederick William Garrett or his occupation?

1. Dorothy Rhoda MILLS was born on 21 April 1898 in Bulawayo, Rhodesia, South Africa; died on 6 Aug 1976 in Turnpike Cottage, Chequers Lane, Eversley, Hook, Hants.