A detailed account of the history of the Kowie estuary and the attempts to develop a harbour at the mouth of the river are given in the “Basket Work Harbour”. (Turpin, 1964). As far as could be ascertained, the river has always been known as the Kowie River. The settlement established at the mouth of the river in 1821 was originally called Port Kowie. This was changed to Port Frances in 1825 in honour of the wife of Colonel Henry Somerset who was then in charge of the military forces on the Eastern Frontier. In 1860 the name of the town was changed once again, to Port Alfred to honour Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburg who was visiting the Frontier at that time. When the settlement was first established at the mouth of the river, the estuary “consisted of one vast swampy region bounded on the east and west by the hills today known as the East and West Banks. When the tide receded it left exposed a number of sandbanks or islands, and the main outlet to the sea was under the eastern hill, exactly opposite the flats to where it is at present.
Reference:
CSIR, Estuarine and Coastal Research Unit. 1982. Kowie (CSE10). Report 10 of the Estuaries of the Cape, Part 2: Synopses of available information on individual systems series. Stellenbosch: CSIR (CSIR Research Report 409)
Estuarine and Coastal Research Unit, E. (1982). Kowie (CSE10) (CSIR Research Report Number). CSIR, National Research Institute for Oceanology. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10204/3451
Estuarine and Coastal Research Unit, ECRU Kowie (CSE10). CSIR Research Report Number. CSIR, National Research Institute for Oceanology, 1982. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/3451
Estuarine and Coastal Research Unit E. Kowie (CSE10). 1982 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/10204/3451
