A mere month later Dr Robertson authorised a portion of the farm Over het Roode Zandt to be purchased for the princely sum of 4 200 Pounds by school teacher Mr. Robertson requesting that a new congregation be started at Hooprivier. In September 1852 Van Zijl and school teacher Mauritz Polack wrote to Dr. A street was named Barry in recognition of the mainstay and trade opportunities that Barry & Nephews had opened up for the Overberg farmers. The new town was named Robertson in honour of the evangelistic Scottish minister who served the Overberg for 39 years and who had held communion church services (nagmaal) when visiting every three months in the home of Johannes W van Zijl who owned the farm Over het Roode Zandt aan Hoopsrivier in the 1840s. It was said that these friends were, “the providers of all things earthly and spiritual”. In 1847 Barry & Nephews had already established the Hoops River Trading Store (which later became Barry Brothers) and would have known that it was a risk worth taking. William Robertson and the Honorable Joseph Barry, who was the auctioneer when the farmland on which the town stood was cut up into erven. Originally called Hooprivier the town of Robertson was founded in 1853 by two good friends, the Dutch Reformed Church minister at Swellendam, Rev.
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