11
One faith. One name. One man.
This is the Huguenot path—from the fires of France to the light of the Cape.
Continued from…
I remember the exact moment I first saw her.
The day had begun like so many others in this harsh, sunlit land. The wind moved across the fields, lifting dust into the air, as if the earth itself had not yet decided whether it would accept us. We were still learning how to live here, still learning how to take root in soil that did not yet know our names.
When word reached us that a new ship had anchored in the bay, many men made their way toward the shore. I stayed where I was at first. I had seen too many arrivals already. Too many faces marked by loss, too many people carrying the last pieces of a life that no longer existed.
But something pulled me toward the bay that day, and without fully understanding why, I found myself walking toward the water.
The shore was filled with noise and movement. Crates were dragged across the sand, children cried, and voices rose in confusion, in relief, and in exhaustion. It was the same chaos I had once stepped into myself.
And then I saw her.
She stood among the others, and still, she did not disappear into the crowd. Her dress was worn from the journey, her hands marked by hardship, and yet there was something in the way she held herself that made everything around her fall still.
She was beautiful in a way that made it difficult to look away, but it was not beauty that held me. It was something deeper. A quiet strength. A calm that did not belong to someone who had just crossed an ocean of uncertainty.
I had seen fear in many eyes. But not in hers.
When she turned her head, her eyes met mine for only a moment, and in that instant something inside me gave way.
I forgot the noise around me. I forgot the weight I had carried for so long. All I saw was her.
I did not yet know her name. But I knew, with a certainty that needed no words, that my life had just changed.
The Arrival of Susanna Seugnet
In 1689, three years after François du Toit had arrived at the Cape, new groups of Huguenot refugees began to reach the colony.
Among them was Susanna Seugnet, a young woman from the Saintonge region in France. She traveled with her sisters, Jeanne and Claudine, leaving behind a country where their faith had placed them in danger. Like many others, they came not out of choice, but necessity.
At the Cape, the balance between men and women was uneven. There were far more men than women, and the arrival of young, unmarried women brought change to a small and growing colony.
The Seugnet sisters were settled in the Drakenstein area, among other French-speaking settlers. Here, language and faith still lived quietly between the people, even as the colony around them slowly changed.
It was in this place that François du Toit and Susanna Seugnet would come to know one another.
I saw her again in the church.
It was the only place where the past still breathed. The only place where our language had not yet been taken from us. The building was simple, far from the churches we had known in France, but it held something stronger than stone. It held memory.
I stood near the back, telling myself I was not searching for her. Still, I hoped.
When she began to sing, I felt it before I understood it. Her voice rose gently above the others, clear and steady. It carried warmth, something that reached deeper than sound. It moved through me in a way I had not felt in years. It felt like home.
I watched her longer than I should have, unable to look away. The light fell softly across her face, and for a moment I forgot everything around me. The journey, the work, the years behind me. There was only her.
When the service ended, I did not hesitate.
As I walked toward her, I felt something I had not allowed myself to feel in years. Hope.
Up close, I saw her clearly. There was loss in her eyes, the same kind I carried within myself. But there was also something else. Strength. A calm that did not break.
When I spoke my name, she looked at me in a way that took my breath away.
“Susanna,” she said softly.
From that moment, something unseen took shape between us.
Family and Foundation
The marriage between François du Toit and Susanne Seugnet marked the true beginning of the Du Toit family line in South Africa. While François’s brother Guillaume also settled at the Cape, he had only daughters. The family name—and the future of the lineage—rested on the shoulders of François and Susanne.
They stood before the pulpit of the Dutch Reformed Church in Cape Town on February 12, 1690, to pledge their lives to one another. It was a summer day in the colony, likely filled with the dry heat of the Cape and the scent of the sea. For two refugees who had fled the borders of France to escape persecution, this ceremony was more than a wedding; it was a defiant act of starting over in a wild, new world.
Together, they carved a life out of the earth at the foot of the Drakenstein mountains. Their home, Kleinbosch, was shaped by faith, hard labor, and a shared will to build something that would last. Soon, the quiet of the valley was replaced by the sounds of a growing legacy. Their children—Andries, Susanna, Geertruy, Helena, Pieter, Francois, Martha, Stephanus, Elisabeth, and Marie—filled both the house and the land with life.
Each child was a seed planted in African soil, growing into a branch of a family tree that would eventually span the entire continent. They weren’t just building a farm—they were founding a dynasty.
The day we married was simple.
It took place within the walls of the small church at the Cape, a place built by hands that had also known loss and longing. The wood was plain, the light soft as it fell through the windows, and the air carried the quiet presence of those who had come before us.
There was nothing in it that the world would call grand. There was no gold, no great hall, no music that filled the space beyond our small gathering.
And still, I remember every moment.
I remember the way she looked at me. I remember the way my hands felt when I held hers. Steady. Certain. As if everything I had lost had led me to this one moment.
I looked at her, and for a moment I could hardly breathe. The way she stood there, the quiet strength in her eyes, the softness in her face. She took something from me without even trying. The weight I had carried for so long seemed lighter just by standing beside her.
We did not stand there untouched by life. We stood there with all that we had lived through. Every loss. Every step that had brought us here.
Our vows were not dreams. They were a promise to build something that would hold. When I looked into her eyes, I saw a future I could trust.
And for the first time since I had left my homeland, I no longer felt alone.
Historical Note: The Groote Kerk
In the early years of the Cape, there was no great church, no strong walls of stone where people could gather in faith. The first settlers met in simple places, often inside the Fort, where a man named Willem Wylant, known as a comforter of the sick, led them in prayer. He taught their children, spoke words of faith, and held the community together in a land that still felt uncertain.
The first communion was held in 1652, only months after the arrival at the Cape. A year later, the first baptism followed. These moments were small, but they carried deep meaning. Faith was one of the few things the settlers had brought with them that could not be taken away.
For many years, the people longed for a church of their own. In 1665, their first full-time minister, Joan van Arckel, arrived at Table Bay. Still, services continued in simple structures, even within the walls of the Castle of Good Hope, while the dream of a true church slowly took shape.
In 1678, the foundation of the first church building was finally laid. It marked a turning point. The settlement was no longer only a place of passing ships. It was becoming a place where people would stay.
On 6 January 1704, a larger stone church was opened. It gave the growing community a place to gather, to worship, and to remain connected to the faith they had carried across the sea. Around this time, Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel played a role in the life of the church and the colony. He laid the cornerstone for the church, leaving his mark on a place that would stand long after his rule had ended.
But even before this larger church was opened, the earlier building had already become part of many lives.
It was there, on the 12th of February 1690, that François du Toit and Susanna Seugnet were married. Within those simple walls, among others who had also left their homeland behind, they made their vows. It was not a grand place, but it held something greater than stone. It held memory, faith, and the quiet strength of people who had endured loss and still chose to begin again.
Over the years, the church was expanded and shaped by skilled hands. A finely carved pulpit was added in 1789, built from strong wood and crafted with care. The building itself changed with time, and in 1841 the present Groote Kerk was opened, while parts of the past were carried into it.
The Groote Kerk became more than a building. It became part of their story.
Generations would be baptized there. Marriages would be blessed. Lives would begin and end within its walls. In a land that was still finding its shape, the church stood as something steady.
A place where the past was remembered. And where faith endured.
The land did not welcome us easily.
There were days when the wind tore through the valley, and nights when the silence felt too large, too empty. But Susanna never saw it as I did. She stood at the center of it all.
Where I saw only the work, she saw what it could become. She shaped our house into something warm, something alive. She gave meaning to the long days and the quiet nights.
There were moments when I would stop and look at her, saying nothing, because words would never have been enough. The way she moved through the house. The way she carried our children. The way she held strength and softness together so naturally. She was the reason this life held together.
As the years passed, the valley filled with sound. Our children’s voices carried across the fields, through the vineyards, through the long days and quiet evenings.
Somewhere along the way, something inside me settled. I was no longer waiting for the past. We had built something new.
Land and Growth
In 1692, François du Toit was granted land in the Daljosafat valley, near present-day Paarl. The farm became known as Kleinbosch, and by 1695, he was the official owner.
This land lay near what was known as the “Limiet,” the outer edge of the colony. It was a place many feared, due to its distance, its wild terrain, and the dangers that came with isolation.
François did not turn away from this. He built into it.
He planted vineyards, farmed grain, and slowly expanded his land. Over time, he would become one of the most successful farmers in the region.
We planted oak trees when the land was still new to us. They were small then, easy to overlook, but I knew they would grow. Just as we had.
There are moments now, when I stand and look at everything around me, and I understand something I did not see before.
This was never only my work. It was ours.
Every vine, every wall, every piece of life we built here carries her in it. She is not only part of this home. She is the reason it became one at all.
For a time, it seemed as if they had found what they had been searching for. The land no longer felt distant, the work had become familiar, and life had taken shape.
But beyond the valley of Drakenstein, the colony was changing.
Power was shifting and control grew stronger. Decisions were being made far from the fields where men like François worked their land. At first, it was hardly noticed. Life continued, seasons turned, and the vineyards grew.
Change does not always arrive with noise. Sometimes it moves quietly, and by the time it is seen, it is already too close to avoid.
Soon, the man who had built his life from nothing would be forced to defend it.
Not against the land, but against authority.
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