Siewert Jacobus Wiid

Notes from unknown imported gedcom file

Siewert Jacobus Wiid is the 5th great uncle of Arnold Greyling the author of this website.

From Copenhagen, arrival 1752.

On September 12, 1750, the Danish Asiatic Company wished the sailing ship, the Crown Princess of Denmark with Swen Finger as captain and Siwert Jacobsen Hvidt as cooper, good luck for the long journey to the fabled spice-rich East. The first leg of 7,000 miles to the South Point of Africa was covered fairly well and it also went relatively quickly because after Finger had taken in water and refreshments in Table Bay, on 12 February 1751 he lifted anchor for the second leg, the shortest one though also about 6,000 miles to Tranquebar, a port city on the East Coast of India.

There, due to headwinds, he was only able to drop anchor on May 30. It wasn’t until October 14 that they lifted anchor again for a destination on the West Coast of India, presumably Calicut, because they were still short of pepper. It was not until 10 February 1752 that they again set sail for the Cape of Storms, which remained as they would find out despite its renaming to the Cape of Good Hope.

On April 18, 1752, the Coastline of Africa came into view, but with it also the storms. The harassment was uninterrupted and on the 15th of May a cabin council was held and found that the ship could not stand it any longer; in fact the crew is sick and many are already dead.

One can only guess what the young man who had to see to it that the vessel remained intact and afloat must have endured, too busy to get sick, too indispensable to die.

The place of refuge that the shipping board had in mind was Pue del Gao according to the shipping register, but it turned out to be out of reach and 10 days later the proud Crown Princess came to her knees, so to speak, at the mouth of little Palmiet River about 20 miles west of Mossel Bay, where anchor was cast.

Two of the crew are put ashore to get help and if you think of the leak in the bow of the ship that was the cooper’s responsibility, then Siwert was undoubtedly one of the two.

This incident of a Danish cargo ship at anchor on a bare stark, stretch of coast located in the Drostdy of Swellendam and this in winter, caused a great stir.

Farmer Jacobus Eykhof immediately set off there and then to Swellendam to tell everything to magistrate Jan Andries Horak and the latter also went to little Palmietrivier to conduct a thorough investigation.

Captain Finger sailed back to Mossel Bay on 6 June 1752 believing that the conditions there would be more favorable. On 5 July 1752, a helmsman of the ship turned up in Table Bay with 2,000 riksdalers and a request that the ship be examined by two Cape Shipwrights. These requests were met as well as setting up a storage place for the cargo. The crew erected a shed for the cargo; the Crown Princess was not left on the beach to perish but it had a watery grave.

In September the sailors’ task of salvage was completed and about 20 men were ordered to stay behind to look after the precious belongings and Siwert Hvidt and others left on 28 October 1752 for Table Bay by cart around the 300 miles over mountain and valley with plenty of wild animals and beautiful spring flowers and trees to lay down.

When the time came to go back to the damp, chilly North, Siwert Hvidt decided to stay in South Africa. Hvid is the spelling of his surname in the ship’s protocol and although Wiidt, Wiedt, Wiit, Wiid are variations found in official documents in the state archives, he never signed his name as anything other than Wiid.