2a HJJ Mc Carthy – 1870

Hercules Jacobus Johannes McCarthy

Boer Fighter, Farmer, Storyteller, and Survivor

At a Glance:

Category	Information
Full Name	Hercules Jacobus Johannes McCarthy
Birth	14 October 1928
Death	1960
Spouses	1 Susanna Cecilia Stoffelina Elisabeth Therblanche
	2 Maria Jacoba Elizabeth van Heerden
	3 Maria Johanna Furstenberg
Children	5
Primary Locations	Lindley, Marico, Wolmaranstad, Kalahari, Klerksdorp
Occupation	Farmer
Photographs	20
Documents	Marriage Certificate, Death Notice, Identity Records, Family Documents
Research Visits	Family farms, cemeteries, historical locations
Evidence Level	High
Last Updated	June 2026
Open Questions	9
Research Gaps	1

Family Photos:

Story Introduction

Among the many lives woven through the McCarthy family history, few left behind as many stories, hardships, and memories as Hercules Jacobus McCarthy.
Born on 28 March 1870 in Humansdorp in the eastern Cape, Hercules entered a South Africa still shaped by frontier farming, wagon travel, drought, conflict, and continual migration into the interior. He was the son of the Irish immigrant James McCarthy and Catharina Magdalena du Preez, whose Afrikaner farming family had already spent generations moving steadily eastward across the Cape frontier.
Hercules received his names from the du Preez family. The names Hercules Jacobus had already appeared in earlier generations and reflected the strong naming traditions common among Afrikaner families of the nineteenth century.
He was baptised in the Dutch Reformed Church in Humansdorp on 12 June 1870.
Very little is known about his earliest childhood, but family records suggest that he spent his young years moving with his family from the eastern Cape into the Orange Free State. The family eventually settled on the farm Waterval near Ladybrand close to the Basotho border.

Then tragedy came early.
On 30 April 1881, Hercules’s father James McCarthy died at the age of 46. Hercules was only eleven years old. His mother never remarried and continued raising the family under difficult frontier conditions.
Years later, when I first began researching the McCarthy family, almost nothing was known about Hercules Jacobus McCarthy beyond scattered stories passed down through the generations. We knew he had been born in Humansdorp, that he had lived in the Free State, and that he had possibly been married more than once. Much of the rest had faded into uncertainty.
Slowly, through archives, estate papers, family memories, church records, and old war documents, fragments of his life began to reappear.
One of the earliest breakthroughs came through records sent by a Scottish researcher, Sandra Gurney, after I joined an online South African genealogy forum. Those first documents confirmed the family links and opened the door to a much larger story.

In June 1898, Hercules married Susanna Cecilia Stoffelina Elisabeth Therblanche in the Dutch Reformed Church in Lindley. She was the daughter of Daniel Johannes Phillipus Therblanche and Hester Jacoba Pitto.
The couple began building a family during one of the most turbulent periods in South African history.
Then came war.

When the Anglo-Boer War broke out in 1899, Hercules joined the Boer forces fighting against the British Empire. According to family stories and later archive discoveries, he fought under Boer commandos during the conflict and experienced the devastation that swept across the Free State and western Transvaal.
Family tradition claims that he may have served under General Christiaan de Wet and possibly fought at Magersfontein, although this has not yet been proven through official records.
One fact that does appear clearly in the archive material is that Hercules surrendered in July 1900 but later took up arms again in October of the same year and continued fighting.
The war touched the family deeply.

On 22 September 1900, his younger brother Daniel Christoffel Benjamin McCarthy was killed at Kromspruit in the Vryburg district while serving under Commandant A.J. Prinsloo.
Another remarkable discovery emerged years later while searching the National Archives records. A claim filed by Hercules McCarthy against the British authorities revealed a vivid picture of the destruction caused during the war.
The claim stated that British forces had damaged or destroyed property on the farm Elandsfontein near Lindley on 23 September 1901. Hercules submitted a compensation claim for £2616, supported by statements from his father-in-law Daniel Therblanche and Cornelius Roos of Witklip.
The claim was eventually rejected because it had allegedly been submitted too late.
Yet the surviving records tell a powerful story of a man trying to rebuild his life after war, loss, and destruction.
The documents also revealed that Hercules supplied wagon loads of wood to the Imperial forces and was owed £144, although he ultimately received only £18.
When I finally visited the Pretoria archives in January 2005 and held the original documents in my hands, seeing Hercules McCarthy’s signature on the papers made the story suddenly feel real and immediate.
The years following the war appear to have been extremely difficult.
Hercules worked across different regions of South Africa and, according to family accounts, even spent time working near the Zambezi.

He also became skilled in using dynamite to blast water pits for farmers in the western Transvaal.
One family story survived generation after generation and eventually explained the unusual middle name “Rautenbach” carried by many of the eldest McCarthy sons.
According to family memory, Hercules was once working deep inside a pit prepared for blasting when the rope pulling him upward snapped. Injured and trapped below, he managed to defuse the explosives but could not climb into the lifting container. An eighteen-year-old Rautenbach boy descended to help him. While lifting Hercules out, the young man fell to his death.
In memory of the boy who saved his life, Hercules later added the name Rautenbach to the names of his eldest sons.
Whether every detail of the story can still be historically proven no longer seems as important as the fact that the memory survived within the family for more than a century.

Hercules and Susanna had five children together:
• James Daniel Christoffel Benjamin
• Daniel Johannes Jacobus Philippus
• Hercules Jacobus Johannes
• Hendrik Gert Ramsbottom Rautenbach McCarthy
• Hester Catharina Jacoba
Then tragedy struck once again.
In May 1909, Susanna died of influenza at Kafferskraal in the Marico district at only 31 years of age. According to family stories, Hercules struggled deeply with her death. For a period, he reportedly left his children in the care of neighbours while he drifted from place to place trying to rebuild his life.

Over time Hercules married again.
His second wife was Maria Jacoba Elizabeth van Heerden, widow of Sarel van Heerden. They likely married sometime between 1915 and 1916 and lived on the farm Doringkrantz near Wolmaransstad. No children were born from the marriage.
Maria died on 20 September 1918.
Hercules later married Maria Johanna Furstenberg in Wolmaransstad on 19 February 1924. She had previously been married to Phillipus Stephanus Botes and brought several children into the marriage.
Afterwards the family moved deep into the Kalahari to a remote place called Genesa beyond Kuruman. There Hercules farmed with oxen and lived in a neat, corrugated iron house on the harsh edge of the desert country.
Family members who visited him there remembered a strict but deeply capable man. He was described as intelligent, disciplined, religious, and an extraordinary storyteller with a remarkable memory.

One relative, Louwrence van Heerden, later recalled visiting him as a child in Wolmaransstad. He remembered Hercules waking before sunrise, lighting the Union stove, reading from the Bible, singing hymns with the family, and sitting on the veranda drinking coffee while watching people pass in the street.
He also remembered Hercules’s distinctive appearance:
• a jacket and tie
• brown trousers
• a pocket watch hanging from a chain
• a wide-brimmed hat
• and the small blue jug beside his chair into which he spat tobacco juice with astonishing accuracy.
Repeatedly, family memories returned to the same themes:

• his storytelling,
• his discipline,
• his deep religious faith,
• and his ability to survive hardship.

Several family members also believed Hercules possessed an unusual intuition about future events. Stories survived of him predicting unexpected visitors or sensing family tragedies before news arrived.
Whether coincidence, intuition, or simply the wisdom of age, these memories became part of the family folklore surrounding him.

In later years Hercules settled in Wolmaransstad and later near Klerksdorp. He farmed, sold oats and butter, travelled with horse and cart into town, and continued living a structured and disciplined life well into old age.
His final years were spent with family in the western Transvaal goldfields region.
On 24 May 1960, Hercules Jacobus McCarthy died at Odendaalsrus.
He was buried in Klerksdorp.

By then South Africa had changed dramatically from the frontier world into which he had been born ninety years earlier.
Yet through war records, estate files, old photographs, fading memories, and the stories passed from one generation to the next, the life of Hercules Jacobus McCarthy still survives — not only as a name on official documents, but as a living presence within the memory of his family.

Timeline:

c.1835	Hercules’s father, James McCarthy, born in Ireland
17 Jan 1840	Catharina Magdalena du Preez, Hercules’s mother, born in Riversdale
18 Jul 1866	James McCarthy married Catharina Magdalena du Preez in Humansdorp
28 Mar 1870	Hercules Jacobus McCarthy born in Humansdorp
12 Jun 1870	Hercules baptised in the Dutch Reformed Church, Humansdorp
22 Nov 1872	Hercules’s grandfather, Hercules Jacobus du Preez, died at Donkerpoort near Winburg
16 Dec 1880 – 23 Mar 1881	First Anglo-Boer War
30 Apr 1881	James McCarthy died on the farm Waterval near Ladybrand
21 Jun 1898	Hercules married Susanna Cecilia Stoffelina Elisabeth Therblanche in Lindley
2 May 1899	Son James Daniel Christoffel Benjamin McCarthy born
9 Oct 1899 – 31 May 1902	Second Anglo-Boer War
1899	Hercules joined the Boer forces against the British Empire
Jul 1900	Hercules surrendered during the war
Oct 1900	Hercules took up arms again and rejoined the Boer forces
22 Sep 1900	Brother Daniel Christoffel Benjamin McCarthy killed at Kromspruit near Vryburg
23 Sep 1901	British forces damaged property on the farm Elandsfontein near Lindley
2 Mar 1902	Son Daniel Johannes Jacobus Philippus McCarthy born
1902	Hercules claimed payment for wagon loads of wood supplied to Imperial forces
22 Sep 1902	Hercules and Susanna signed a joint will
1903	Compensation claim of £2616 submitted against British authorities
18 Mar 1904	Son Hercules Jacobus Johannes McCarthy born
c.1904	Dynamite pit accident involving the Rautenbach family story
14 Apr 1907	Son Hendrik Gert Rautenbach McCarthy born
14 Aug 1908	Daughter Hester Catharina Jacoba McCarthy born
29 May 1909	Susanna Cecilia Stoffelina Elisabeth McCarthy died of influenza at Kafferskraal, Marico
1910	Photograph taken of Hercules with his children at Zeerust
1915	Death of Sarel van Heerden, future second wife Maria’s first husband
c.1915–1916	Hercules married Maria Jacoba Elizabeth van Heerden
20 Sep 1918	Maria Jacoba Elizabeth McCarthy died at Doringkrantz near Wolmaransstad
8 Nov 1918	Hercules signed legal documents relating to inherited property
19 Feb 1924	Hercules married Maria Johanna Furstenberg in Wolmaransstad
c.1924–1929	Hercules and Maria moved to Genesa in the Kalahari beyond Kuruman
1929	Granddaughter Lettie Swaters visited the Genesa farm
24 Nov 1948	Property in Brand Street, Wolmaransstad, registered in Hercules’s name
21 Jan 1958	Hercules and Maria Johanna drew up their testament
1 Jul 1959	Maria Johanna McCarthy died in Klerksdorp
6 Jul 1959	Hercules signed Maria Johanna’s estate papers
24 May 1960	Hercules Jacobus McCarthy died at Odendaalsrus
1960	Hercules buried in Klerksdorp

Documents & Evidence:

Key records and sources discovered during the research include:
• Baptism records from the Dutch Reformed Church in Humansdorp
• Marriage certificate of Hercules Jacobus McCarthy and Susanna Therblanche
• Anglo-Boer War compensation claims documents
• British claims correspondence and legal papers
• Estate papers of Maria Jacoba Elizabeth McCarthy
• Estate papers of Maria Johanna McCarthy
• Death certificate of Susanna Cecilia Stoffelina Elisabeth McCarthy
• Family photographs from Zeerust and Wolmaransstad
• Oral history interviews with family members including Lettie Swaters and Louwrence van Heerden
• Boer War references connected to Daniel Christoffel Benjamin McCarthy
• National Archives documents from Pretoria and Cape archival collections

Cemeteries & Memorials:

Open Questions :

Despite extensive research, several important questions remain:
• Did Hercules officially serve under General Christiaan de Wet?
• Did he participate in the Battle of Magersfontein?
• Can military records confirming his Boer War service still be located?
• Where exactly was the farm Genesa in the Kalahari?
• What work did Hercules perform near the Zambezi after the war?
• How accurate is the Rautenbach dynamite story as passed through family memory?
• Are additional photographs or personal letters still held by descendants?
• Can further evidence be found regarding his years between the Boer War and his later life in Wolmaransstad?
• What became of some of the missing branches of the extended McCarthy family?