Pieter van Meerhof was from Copenhagen, Denmark. He arrived at the Cape on the ship Princess van Royael. He was an adventurer, traveller and surgeon. He also served as the superintendent on Robben Island. He went on th slaving ship Westwout. He got killed on this slaving expedition at Antogil Bay in Madagascar before 27 February 1668. This ship arrived back at the Cape on 30 September 1668. Meerhoffskasteel was named after him.

He got married to the khoikhoi Eva Krotoa on 26 April 1664. She was baptised as an adult at the Fort on 3 May 1662. She was raised in the Governor van Riebeeck"s home.

CHILDREN
b1 Jacobus born c 1661 died 1685 on the ship back from Mauritius
b2 Pieternella born 1663, X Daniel Zaayman
b3 Salamon baptised 1 Sep 1666
b4 Jeronimus baptised 23 Nov 1670 (He was an illegitimate child)
b5 Anthonij baptised 6 Aug 1673 (He was an illegitimate child)

Jannetje Ferdinandus and Barbara Geens presented a statuary declaration that they heard it been said that Martin Reselaar came to Catharina Crooms, the wife of Thomas Mulder, with a bottle of Spanish wine and got her drunk and then slept with her, and the Pieter van Meerhof also slept with her. (Schoeman, p 79).

Eva died on 29 July 1679 and was buried in the little church at the new castle.

Pieternella and Salomon was later placed in the care of Theuntje Bartholomeus van der Linde and her husband Bartholomeus Borns, they went with them to Mauritius in in 1677. Later the eldest son Jacobus was also sent to Mauritius to join his sister, he soon sailed back to the Cape but he died on the ship.

Anthonij van Meerhoff is found in records of 1712, he may have died in 1713 from the smallpox epidemic.

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 In the custom of the Dutch at the time, a lot of local people have perpetuated the Dutch way of translating foreign names into Dutch so I tried van Meerhof into Danish and it works, 'Havgaard'. The surname also is still in use.

His Danish name, Peter (Peter Ede) Haggard, was translated into Pieter van Meerhof. His parents were Aug and Marie Ede from Havgaard, a farm/estate on an island in Denmark called Langeland. The farm is still there and the Danish name Havgaard still exists.

Jan Neelmeyer (Danish)