A pioneering history of Hazyview and surrounds

Perhaps the most complete documentation on the history of Hazyview is this piece by local historian, Hans Bornman as it was publish in the revised edition of his book, Pioneers of the Lowveld.
Note that Bornman is now involved in putting together a more comprehensive history on the town, its surrounds and its people, past and present. Hazyview Herald hopes that more of its readers will be inspired by this to fill in the gaps and to offer valuable information. This project is in conjunction with Mpumalanga Heritage. There is a great need of photographs of the town over the years. Any picture of people building and important occasions will be of great help. Here to follow is the piece on Hazyview as it was published in Bornman’s book:
“The romantic name refers to the view over the district where banana plantations dominate the landscape. The first trees were planted in the early 1950s and since then Kiepersol and Burgers Hall, south-west of Hazyview, have become important banana-producing areas. Six roads, coming from all directions, converge at Hazyview. It is a village situated on the farm De Rust, 35 kilometres east of Sabie, about 35 kilometres north of White River and 53 kilometres west of Skukuza.
“Because of its distance from White River, Sabie, Kruger National Park and Phalaborwa, it is the perfect locality for a trading post and petrol-filling station. The village of Hazyview was officially promulgated in 1959 when the first post office was established and Hazyview Station came into being when the old Selati Railway Line was diverted outside the western border of the Kruger National Park to Kaapmuiden in the late 1960s.
“Harry Wolhuter, the famous Kruger National Park game ranger, had a friend named Paul Perry, a French Canadian and member of Steinaecker’s Horse, a cavalry regiment in the South African War, who saved Harry’s life when he had blackwater fever. Some time after the war, Perry was granted a farm on the Sabie River by the government, which he named Perry’s Farm, on which he started a trading store. Having no family, he willed his farm to Harry and after his death and burial there, Harry was obliged to sell the farm in order to liquidate the debts. This farm was later to become the site of the Sabi River Bungalows, now Hotel Sabie River and Country Club, and the bridge over the Sabie River as Perry’s Bridge.
“The farm De Rust used to belong to Harry Wolhuter. He sold the farm to HE Gillman and Eric Smothers. Smothers donated a five-morgen section of the farm for the establishment of the Sabi-Sand Cooperative and Smothers’ daughter, married to Peter Batchelder, sold five morgen to the Sabi-Sand Cooperative for the housing of the co-op’s staff and for a tennis court.
“The Sabi-Sand Cooperative was established in 1955. At the same time the Blue Haze Garage was started and Peter Batchelder negotiated with Roy Hurndall for a business complex in Hazyview. Peter erected the buildings and Roy leased the building and started Kiaat Traders, later changed to Hazyview Traders. This complex also housed a medicine depot and a post office.
“Some eight kilometres south-west of Hazyview is Burgers Hall. This farm was granted to Alois Hugo Nellmapius (1847-1893) for the construction of the transport road between Lydenburg and Lebombo (Mozambique border) in 1875. The other farms granted to him were Joubertshoop, Lodwichs Lust, Coopersdal, Pretoriuskop and Castilhopolis.
“Today the Burgers Hall area is one of the main banana-producing areas of the Lowveld and the man responsible for planting the first banana orchards was Eduard Christiaan (Eddie) Joubert (1891-1962). Capt Max Tylden-Wright and Charles Hull opened the first hotel on the Sabie River in 1932 to service the visitors to the Kruger National Park, hunters travelling to the north and various entrepreneurs in mining, timber and farming. The Sabi River Bungalows consisted of 13 rondavels with private bathrooms, six single rondavels for the chauffeurs, and a hot mineral spring swimming pool. This was a very prestigious hotel and Lady Louis Mountbatten, who visited in 1937, was but one of many famous people who stayed there.
“East of Hazyview, on the road to the Kruger National Park, are the well-known game sanctuaries such as Londolozi, SabiSabi, MalaMala, and others. The concept of nature reserves started after the proclamation of the Kruger National Park in 1926. Until then farms in the Lowveld were utilised for hunting purposes but with the proclamation of the park, conservation awareness was born. The portion lying to the west of the park, between the Sabie River in the south and the Olifants River in the north, was the first area where the concept of private nature reserves began.
“In 1926 Charles Boyd Varty and Frank A Unger, both ardent sportsmen and true lovers of wildlife, purchased the farm Sparta, in the present Sabi Sand Wildtuin, and thus pioneered the ‘game farm’ idea in this area. A year later WA (Wac) Campbell, the patriarch of Natal Sugar Estates, and a foundation member of the National Parks Board, bought MalaMala, Eyrefield and Marthly in this reserve, and subsequently acquired several other adjacent farms. During the early ’30s almost all the farms in the Toulon Block (Sabi Sand), as well as several others in the neighbourhood, were purchased by private individuals.
“In 1934 some of the owners looked for a scheme of cooperative game protection. They took their problem to the Transvaal Land Owners Association (TLOA), which had many functions, including the administration of unoccupied agricultural and game farms for individuals or groups. The TLOA suggested that the Sabi Private Game Scheme be formed. This name was changed in July 1948 to Sabi Sand Wildtuin and formally proclaimed a private nature reserve on January 27, 1965. Londolozi Game Reserve was one of the first to be established in the Sabi Sand area. Londolozi Game, meaning ‘protector of all living things’.”