Utrecht

Utrecht, a town of northern Natal, 30 m. by rail E. by N. of Newcastle. Pop. (1904) 1315. It is the chief place in a district of the same name, originally settled in 1848 by emigrant Boers from Natal. They formed an independent community and in 1854 obtained, in exchange for a hundred head of cattle, formal cession of the territory from Panda, the Zulu king. In 1858 the district was united with the republic of Lydenburg, and in 1860, with Lydenburg, became part of the South African Republic. In 1903 it was, with the neighbouring district of Vryheid, annexed to Natal. The town of Utrecht is built in a hollow among the foothills of the Drakensberg. In the neighbourhood are extensive coal-fields.