Linden Voortrekker Monument

During the original 1838 Trek, a group under the leadership of Dirkie Uys was attacked. Johanna van der Merwe survived with multiple assegai wounds to her face. Against difficult odds, she managed to warn the other “Trekkers” of the impending danger. To honour her heroism, a wagon on the Centenary trip of 1938 was named in her honour.

The koppie in Emma Park where the monument was built was visited by the Johanna van der Merwe wagon on 10 December 1938 as part of the commemorative Oxwagon Trek organized by the ATKV (Afrikaanse Taal- en Kultuurvereniging). On that day a stone cairn was laid with stones provided by the public and the Johanna van der Merwe wagon was pulled over a slab of cement imprinting the wheel tracks of the wagon.

Many of the monuments built for the 1938 Voortrekker Centenary Trek started out with the laying of a stone cairn by the public on the day that the town was visited by the wagons participating in the symbolic ox-wagon Trek. The monument itself was usually built at a later stage and often the stones that formed part of the stone cairn were used to build the monument.

The oxwagon Johanna vd Merwe was dragged up the Emma park Koppie by members of the church (the NGK in Linden) and the Laerskool Louw Geldenhuys. At the top of the koppie the hoofs of oxen were imprinted in stone, and at the nearby Voortrekker Hall the wheels were also imprinted. Afterwards, there was a party at Emma Park.

The Emma Park monument was made of large sandstone blocks with a sandstone obelisk pointing to the sky, rather than with the smaller stones of the stone cairn. This monument was erected in 1939 to commemorate the arrival of the symbolic oxwagon trek at the koppie from the Cape. It is managed by Die Voortrekkers, a movement for Afrikaans youth whose objectives include the preservation of Afrikaans culture, based in Pretoria. The organisation has 11 000 members nationwide, of which some 180 are based in the local Linden chapter.