SAMUEL MARSDEN. 
583 
lie was tlie honored instrument who laid the first stone of the 
New Zealand Churchy and thus commenced a work which 
has increased in magnitude with increasing years, and added 
many to the fold of Christ.* 
The venerated name of Marsden, so intimately connected 
with the history of New Zealand and its emancipation from 
that savage state in which it formerly laid, demands further 
mention : — 
Mr. Marsden was born at a village called Horseforth, 
between Bradford and Leeds, in the West Biding of York- 
shire, where many of his relatives still reside ; f he was 
originally a blacksmith, f which far from being derogatory, 
greatly redounds to his credit, that by his own inherent 
energy of character, he should have raised himself from the 
multitude of the unknown, and obtained a name far more 
honorable, widely extended, and likely to be perpetuated, 
than that of many who, though distinguished by wealth and 
ancestry, are never heard of beyond their own circles, and 
whose names will be as totally unknown to future ages, as 
those of the mass from which the good man arose, who is 
still revered, and will continue to be so in the distant land 
he labored, and by the Church in general to which he 
* There is every reason to believe, that it was the last sermon preached by 
Mr. Marsden, at Cowes, Isle of Wight, (where he touched before he sailed for 
Australia,) which was the means blessed to the conversion of the dairyman’s 
daughter. 
f 1769, Dec. 24th — Samuel, son of John Marsden, blacksmith, was baptized 
in the Chapel of Horsforth, and Registered in the Parish Church of Guiseley, 
York. 
X It appears not improbable that the founder of the noble family of Ferrars 
was once either a member of the same fraternity, or of the kindred one of 
Farriers, and on that account assumed the horse shoe for his heraldic bearing, 
in memory of which the King granted him the privilege of demanding the horse 
shoes of every peer of the realm who passed by his castle at Oakham, a custom 
which is yet observed ; the old baronial hall, the only portion still entire is 
filled with mementos of it, several hundred horse shoes of every dimension are 
nailed on its walls, from that of Queen Elizabeth, in size somewhat less than a 
cart wheel, to one of Queen Victoria, which is gilt and also of fair proportions. 
The town has also assumed the horse shoe for its armorial bearing, and seems to 
patronize the horse chesnut tree, from its having, I suppose, the marks of the 
right number of nails in the horse shoe on the scars made by the leaves on its 
branches. 
