MEMORIES OF MARSDEN.

Shannon News, 22 March 1929, Page 4

MEMORIES OF MARSDEN.

w* OIfI^GBEENSTONE 3 MEEB

A J^:iBiIMAEKABIiE.-MEETING

(By Hector Macauarrie)

•It was on the verandah of an isolated and picturesquely-situated cattle station homestead some 50 miles inland from, the, dying <iown of .iGooktown in Northern Queensland. We, Dick Matthews , and myself, after a strenuous

motor journey over the old .Byexstown Range Road, driving, incidentally, the - first car ever to,, negotiate its , dead-timber-strewn , length and, ruined, cut-

tings, were resting on a cool, chintzcovered sofa chatting with our host and . hostess, Mr. Norman and Miss Clara Gibson: , The cattle station was 'called King's Plains, after a Mr. King who formerly owned this lovely place. At the foot of the slope falling from the rising.ground.upon which the home- , stead sprawled. so; comfortably were two long narrow lagoons, bearing on their, shimmering., surf ace. multi-colour-.ed.iot.usi and:water-lily blossoms. One lagoon was called New Year's Day lagoon and the other Christmas Day lagoon. That the Gibsons should have oji j their place a lake called Christmas . ..Day Lagoon may seem to- some people

part of the strange which had brought. two . New r Zealanders to „ King's Plains; but, that: may be ap-parent-later. •*' ,We .had no ; "idea who the, Gibsons

were.!-They ow-ned;.a ,great .cattle sta? • tion on our way; it would have; been rude not to call on them;.and it.was de rgueur,r according to ;bush custom, for'them to entertain us and even to

supply us with-»provision for the coming • days of our journey.

A Pine Greenstone Mere.

Our host said: "It's nice to know that you both come from New Zealand, my great-grandfathor was very interested in> New Zealand. He- went there •several- -times-; he\was last there—now let me see—yes, in 1837." There was some interruption at the moment; I thing, tea; but I recall but polite interest; many great-grand-fathers were in New Zealand, and I could think ofc no?great-grandfather Gibson of-any 1 note in our country. It did not occur to me that a man can have four great grandfathers, or that Mr. Gibson's great-grandfather need not have been a Gibson. I remembered vaguely that Dick's great-grandfather —the Rev. Joseph Matthews—was famous in northern-New Zealand dur-

ing the" tearlyv days ;of: the last century. "My brother was telling you that my great-grandfather 'was interested in New Zealand," said, Miss Gibson, after ddnnerv that evening, when we had returned to the cool verandah:

"I've got something rather curious from N,ew Zealand in my room; I'll show it to you." A few seconds later she returned with a fine greenstone mere.

few hundred feet. All agreed, howthews and I, ardent searchers for during the months we lived in Spirits' Bay, where' odd bits are found occasionally, should discover in the wilds of northern Queensland just the- kind of mere we had often dreamt of finding in the shifting sands of the Far i Norths Obviously we examined this - one , with great interest and a little .jealously., Frankly I had never held one in my hand before. >-"Her Name was Marsden."

I-was curious to know how the Gib

eons came by, the old jade club .until ,1

recalled our host's remark about his great-grandfather's interest in New Zealand. I guessed his age as about 40; his father could now be 80 and

his grandfaalier -well over 100; that would make his great grandfather ripe for adventure in the good old days. : "Very beautiful!" I sfejUoV "You must treasure this; I suppose you know that it is of considerable value in New Zealand."

"Is it?" said Mr. Gibson; "I'm afraid I didn't treasure it when I was

a boy. I was playing with it and —he pointed to a slight chip on the shaft—'' I broke it a little and got into rather a row with Grandmother Betts.

J '' She .thought a great deal of that-

old club," he added reminiscently. "You know," said Miss Gibson, < handing the mere to Dick, "that club was given to my grandmother nearly, a hundred years ago by the Maoris.'' "No—l didn't," I hesitated; "was her name Gibson or Betts—or what if-

"Her name- was Marsden—Mary Marsden." " And, of course, her father was , Samuel Marsdfcn —who pfeachjed th,o first sermon ever preached in New Zealand—" I hesitated—" on Christmas Bay, 1814—'Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy!' " 1 . "How did you know all that?" our host and hostess said in chorus. "Every schoolboy knows that in New Zealand," I returned; "Dick here may pretend that he ddosn't—but he .. does!" A Remarkable Coincidence. In 1837 Samuel Marsden, then a very . ;old man, used to* sit beneath a shady ■ tree before the Mission House at Kai- . .taia receiving .hundreds of Maoris who ..had journeyed many miles to bid him good-bye, for they, knew, if he did not, ,2s that they > would not see his face again; .(land tthey-loved.him. He was," of course,' ,4 the,.guest of the Rev. Joseph- Matthews. ■■>■ In 1928 .Joseph Matthew's •j great-grandson sat beneath the hospitable roof of Samuel Marsden's greatgrandchildren in a remote corner of - Queensland, and they had not previ- • • ously known of one another's existence. The coincidence was, ,1 thought, amaz- ■ One-should end here but some explanations are ■ due. l . Mary Marsden 'married* John Betts and her daughter, ■Mary Betts/became' Mrs. Gibson and the mother of- our* host and hostess. I should add, too, that in looking up a history of Marsden in the Sydney public Library, I saw that the dauga- -» iter-who.-accompanied him on his last <\" voyage to New -Zealand is'-called

"Martha." Miss Gibson wrote her name as "Mary," and, if I remember correctly the history of New Zealand I read in Auckland some months ago, also gave the name as "Mary." Samuel Marsden's Old Bookcase. There was one very old bookcase in the dining room which caught my eye at once, positively groaning with books, many of which, judging by their fresh "jackets," had not been very long from the printer. The bookcase was of aged oak and rosewood; it had been repaired often, was not particularly decorative and could only appeal to a lover of old furniture. It would, too, appeal very strongly to the curators of every museum in New ; Zealand, not through its intrinsic and antique value, but through its associations and the man who brought it to Australia. This bookcase, we learned, had been in Samuel Marsden's study at Parramatta. I cannot leave the Gibsons of King's Plains without recalling a conversation I once had with the late Sir James Carroll at Gisborne. He then claimed the honour of starting the expression "Kia Ora" as a slogan during the visit to New Zealand in. 1901 of the present King and Queen when Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York. Later we were discussing early New Zealand • mission history and Marsden in particular. I asked for a word descriptive of Marsden and his effect on the Maoris.

"Aroha—aroha!" said ' "Jimmy" CaTi-oll; and I feel that no word can more charmingly describe King's, Plains and Samuel Marsden's greatgrandchildren.