Fraserburg is a town situated at the intersection of the R353 and R356 Regional Routes in the Karoo region in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa.
Fraserburg has some of the coldest winters in South Africa and falls within the Karoo Hoogland Local Municipality under the Namakwa District Municipality.
The nearest towns to Fraserburg are Leeu-Gamka, Loxton, Sutherland, and Williston, all of which are more than 100 km distant.
Fraserburg is also well known for the large number of unique and well-preserved fossil finds that litter the surrounding area.
A particularly good example of a corbelled house can be found in the town, there are others in the district.
History
The earliest known inhabitants of the area were the San people and their artefacts and rock paintings can still be found in the area.
The first Europeans to arrive in the region were Trekboers who arrived in 1759. The first settler to be recorded in these parts was Willem Steenkamp, after whom the Steenkampsberg is named.
In 1851, Fraserburg was established on the farm Rietfontein and named after the Scottish immigrant Reverend Colin Fraser.
A post office was established in 1858, seven years after the town’s founding, this led to an era of development for the area.
In 1859, a magistrates office was opened and in 1860 a police station was opened and the town’s first medical doctor arrived.
In 1861, a prison was opened in the town, it closed 107 years later in 1968.
In 1870, the town’s first attorney and noted Afrikaans author, H. W. A. Cooper, moved to the town where he wrote the “Boerebrieven” in the Afrikaans newspaper Het Volksblad, writing under the pseudonym Samuel Zwaartman.
The town was declared a municipality on June 6, 1862.
There are many Victorian era houses in the town dating to the era of the ostrich feather and wool booms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In 1861, the town’s distinctive hexagonal stone bell tower was built. Known as The Pepperpot due to its distinctive shape, the 9-meter-tall (30 ft) structure and was used as the magistrate’s private office, the Market Master’s office and functioned as the town’s first library.
In 1870, a powder magazine, which still stands on the edge of town, was built by the British army in case of war with the neighbouring Griqua people and was used during the Anglo-Boer War. In 1938 the town’s first power station was installed with 7 Lister Blackstone generators -still present- used to power the town at the time it was connected to the national grid in 1983.
