Antonie Viljoen

Born on August 21, 1858, Viljoen was raised at Middelplaas, Caledon, and was the only one of his 10 siblings to be properly educated, matriculating at the South African College school in Cape Town. He studied medicine eventually at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. He travelled in Europe and studied a range of agricultural practices too. On returning to South Africa, he served as District Surgeon in Caledon, where he met and married his wife Margaretha Johanna Jacoba (Maggie) Beyers. The couple had three daughters, Maria Elizabeth Anna (who died at age 8 years), Johanna Jakobmina Kurgerina (Hannah) (married to Rawbone), and Oaklene Savoye Marguerite (married to Hewat).

In the 1880s he lived and worked in the Transvaal Republic, and served as pres Paul Kruger's personal surgeon (one of his daughters was named "Krugerina" after Paul Kruger) and with the money he earned there, he bought farmland in the Elgin Valley in 1898, part of which was the Oak Valley farm.

He spent much of the next few years under house arrest on his farm (he had signed up as a medical officer with the Boer army, during the Anglo-Boer war, and was soon captured by the British. His internment on Oak Valley was only granted on condition that he paid for the services of two British soldiers to guard him for the duration of the war!) Antonie Viljoen was a farmer extraordinaire growing everything from grape vines to potatoes. Among his many farming achievements were the purchase of the first deciduous fruit trees in the Elgin valley after realising that the area was ideally suited for the cultivation of apples and pears. He is regarded as the pioneer to establish the apple industry of the region. These were initially grown and maintained by his farm labourers, largely as their own separate concern, however they constituted the first known deciduous orchard in the region.^[1][2]