Enon, formerly known as Witterivier, is a small town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, situated approximately 13 km east of Nqweba (formerly known as Kirkwood) and 60 km north-east of Kariega (formerly known as Uitenhage).
The town is named after the biblical place mentioned in John 3:23. It falls within the Sundays River Valley Local Municipality and the Sarah Baartman District Municipality.
History
Enon was formed in 1818 by the Moravian Missionary Society at the request of the Area Landdrost Jacob Glen Cuyler, to serve as a buffer between the Xhosa, Fingo, and Tembu tribes living outside the Cape Colony and the European farmers and towns inside the Cape Colony. The land was granted to the Missionary Society in trust, to be administered on behalf of the Cape Colony in the interests of residents of the missionary station.
Within the first 35 years of its inception, it was caught in the middle of three Cape Frontier Wars and the First Anglo-Boer War, and it was evacuated on three separate occasions.
Enon is referred to in the 1840s by James Backhouse in his diary.
In 1909, control of the town was ceded back to the Union of South Africa.
