Family Tree - Person Sheet
Family Tree - Person Sheet
NameDavid Dominic Fregona 
Birth27 Jul 1866, Belluno, Italy
Death4 Sep 1935, Pinetown, Natal, South Africa
OccupationFarmer, Hotel and Storekeeper
FatherGiacinto (George) Fregona (1815-1879)
MotherRacheal Piol (1838-1908)
Spouses
Birth1878, Natal, South Africa
Death25 May 1920, Committed suicide due to Post Partum Depression
Marriage10 Jan 1894
ChildrenPeter Joseph (1896-1919)
Theresa (Zina) Elizabeth (1894-1984)
Katherine Isabella (1898-1983)
Mary Victoria (1899-1923)
Rosa Matilda (1902-1994)
Alberto Dominic (1904-1998)
Alfred Lawrence (1907-1934)
Victor Emmanuel (1911-2011)
Reginald Maurice (1914-1983)
Orlando Sylvester (1920-1978)
Notes for David Dominic Fregona
An artcle written by Julie Claxton
Sunday, 10 February 2008
Nowadays one meets a lot of entrepreneurs. Schools offer courses to develop entrepreneurial skills. A hundred years ago, the term was unknown in South Africa. Yet David Dominic Fregona personified many of the qualities an entrepreneur needs.
Family tradition says that he was one of three brothers who left their native Italy to seek their fortunes. To assess the prospects, each one travelled to a different county, from which he would report to his brothers. That way, they would make the best of prevailing conditions and avoid costly and mistaken travel. David Fregona came to Natal.
We first hear of him in the Outer West in the early 1890s. He leased a roadside store called the Waggoner's Rest from William Gillitt of Emberton. It stood where the road from Shongweni joined the Old Main Road, near the present Heritage Centre. It was part pub and part trading store, with a little space too for travellers to doss down for the night. It depended on traffic passing to and from the interior.
A couple of years later, in 1895, William Gillitt leased another block of land nearby to the Durban developer Ernest Acutt. This was the beginning of the village which would become Hillcrest. At first, Durban families built wood-and-iron holiday cottages on their sub-divisions. At weekends and in school holidays they travelled up by train or car to spend some time in the country. David Fregona's customer base had received something of a boost.
Fregona became a leading figure in the village. He acquired the farm Belvedere, near the present Hillcrest High School, and started a dairy which kept the locals in daily milk and cream. As time passed, the little settlement gained permanent residents, many of whom commuted daily to Durban by train. By the end of the century, Hill Crest had its own railway station, in Inanda Road, replacing the halt beside the Old Main Road that had served for several years.
Many of the passengers who travelled on the trains were Africans from Embo in the valley. To cater for them, Fregona opened a trading store across the road from the station. He called it Elangeni, a name which was preserved in the street beside the store and later in the present Elangeni Centre. For many years this store was run by Dave Adam.
The highlight of David Fregona's contribution to the development of Hillcrest was probably the building of a hotel on the Old Main Road in the 1930s. This Hillcrest Hotel, now part of the Colony Centre, became a well-known stopping place for travellers from Pietermaritzburg and further up-country. Occasionally one still meets older people who remember stopping at the hotel for the night or for tea or a meal. For residents of Hillcrest, however, the hotel provided a social centre. It was an alternative venue to the old wood-and-iron community hall that had served the community for a generation. Dances and other functions were regularly held at the hotel, particularly on Friday and Saturday evenings.
David Fregona's children, as far as it has been possible to discover, moved to Durban and the link with Hillcrest was lost. Some years ago, however, a teacher with the same surname served briefly at Hillcrest High School. .Now only a handful of senior Hillcresters remember the first Fregona or have any idea of the role he played, over some forty years, in making the village a pleasant place to live.
https://www.iol.co.za/ios/behindthenews/a-real-fawlty-towers-hillcrest-hotel-has-seen-it-all-e5438734-8ff8-427c-85bf-8adafd7288a4
https://famousdurban.co.za/an-early-entrepreneur/
Dominic is mentioned quite a lot. Even the Catholic Church here is called St. Dominic’s, as he donated land for the first Catholic Church in Hillcrest which opened in November 1936.
Grandfather and Grandmother were wanting to travel to the USA via England. When they arrived in England the boat to USA was delayed for three weeks, so they took a boat to South Africa and settled in Hillcrest. The journey was related in a book by Elizabeth Camp, “The Story of Hillcrest” dating from 1895.
Sunday, 10 February 2008
Nowadays one meets a lot of entrepreneurs. Schools offer courses to develop entrepreneurial skills. A hundred years ago, the term was unknown in South Africa. Yet David Dominic Fregona personified many of the qualities an entrepreneur needs.
Family tradition says that he was one of three brothers who left their native Italy to seek their fortunes. To assess the prospects, each one travelled to a different county, from which he would report to his brothers. That way, they would make the best of prevailing conditions and avoid costly and mistaken travel. David Fregona came to Natal.
We first hear of him in the Outer West in the early 1890s. He leased a roadside store called the Waggoner's Rest from William Gillitt of Emberton. It stood where the road from Shongweni joined the Old Main Road, near the present Heritage Centre. It was part pub and part trading store, with a little space too for travellers to doss down for the night. It depended on traffic passing to and from the interior.
A couple of years later, in 1895, William Gillitt leased another block of land nearby to the Durban developer Ernest Acutt. This was the beginning of the village which would become Hillcrest. At first, Durban families built wood-and-iron holiday cottages on their sub-divisions. At weekends and in school holidays they travelled up by train or car to spend some time in the country. David Fregona's customer base had received something of a boost.
Fregona became a leading figure in the village. He acquired the farm Belvedere, near the present Hillcrest High School, and started a dairy which kept the locals in daily milk and cream. As time passed, the little settlement gained permanent residents, many of whom commuted daily to Durban by train. By the end of the century, Hill Crest had its own railway station, in Inanda Road, replacing the halt beside the Old Main Road that had served for several years.
Many of the passengers who travelled on the trains were Africans from Embo in the valley. To cater for them, Fregona opened a trading store across the road from the station. He called it Elangeni, a name which was preserved in the street beside the store and later in the present Elangeni Centre. For many years this store was run by Dave Adam.
The highlight of David Fregona's contribution to the development of Hillcrest was probably the building of a hotel on the Old Main Road in the 1930s. This Hillcrest Hotel, now part of the Colony Centre, became a well-known stopping place for travellers from Pietermaritzburg and further up-country. Occasionally one still meets older people who remember stopping at the hotel for the night or for tea or a meal. For residents of Hillcrest, however, the hotel provided a social centre. It was an alternative venue to the old wood-and-iron community hall that had served the community for a generation. Dances and other functions were regularly held at the hotel, particularly on Friday and Saturday evenings.
David Fregona's children, as far as it has been possible to discover, moved to Durban and the link with Hillcrest was lost. Some years ago, however, a teacher with the same surname served briefly at Hillcrest High School. .Now only a handful of senior Hillcresters remember the first Fregona or have any idea of the role he played, over some forty years, in making the village a pleasant place to live.
https://www.iol.co.za/ios/behindthenews/a-real-fawlty-towers-hillcrest-hotel-has-seen-it-all-e5438734-8ff8-427c-85bf-8adafd7288a4
https://famousdurban.co.za/an-early-entrepreneur/
Dominic is mentioned quite a lot. Even the Catholic Church here is called St. Dominic’s, as he donated land for the first Catholic Church in Hillcrest which opened in November 1936.
Grandfather and Grandmother were wanting to travel to the USA via England. When they arrived in England the boat to USA was delayed for three weeks, so they took a boat to South Africa and settled in Hillcrest. The journey was related in a book by Elizabeth Camp, “The Story of Hillcrest” dating from 1895.