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The Late Mr. Lionel Samson.
Our obituary advertisements in our present
issue announced the death of Mr. Lionel
Samson on the 15th instant, and as one of
our very oldest colonists, as one well-known
to every settler, he demands a brief notice
at our hands.
He arrived in the Calista in the August
of 1829 ; the Parmelia, with the Governor
(then styled the Administrator of the
Government) and staff having arrived in
the previous June. Among his fellow
passengers were the well-known names of
George Leake, Daniel Scott, Richard
Wells — all long since dead — William Sam-
son, and James Knight ; and of this list
the two last-named, with Mrs. Spencer,
the mother of the late Mrs. James Gallop,
are, we believe, the sole survivors. To
write a sketch of Mr. Samson's colonial
career would be to write a history of the
colony. But now that the well-remembered
voice is silent, and the well-remembered
figure will no longer darken the doors of his
friends, to all of whom, from the Governor
to the very humblest of his fellow-colonists,
he was welcome, we can merely call to
mind his loss.
From the first he engaged in mercantile
pursuits ; the first Government Auctioneer,
the first Postmaster; always a leading
member of society, and during the reigns
of Governors Fitzgerald, Kennedy, and
Hampton, a member of the old Legislative
Council, he exercised a widespread in-
fluence. His genial wit, his bounteous
hospitality, his integrity in his business
transactions, made his name a household
word.
He saw the various transitions of the
colony ; its foundation, and subsequent
subsidence until the establishment of the
Australind settlement in 1841 ; its second
subsidence until the arrival of convicts in
1850 ; and its improvement thenceforth to
the day of his death. During this time not
a settler existing but can tell of some kind-
ness done, some kindly advice given, some
pleasant conversation largely salted with
shrewd and accurate observation, humor,
and anecdote. Not a naval or military
officer ever passed a week in the colony
without being his guest ; and none left our
shores without a pleasant remembrance of
Lionel Samson. He never held a paid
government office ; nor even has he ranked
among 'the great unpaid.' His office
even as Postmaster General was a source
of expense to him. We well recollect how,
until Mr MacFaull assumed the office in
1832, he used, as he told us, to dread the
arrival of a ship. His only privilege, for
which he stipulated, was that he might
read his own letters first ; and then came
the duty of distributing those letters to his
friends, who in many cases would borrow
money for them to pay the postage - not
return it — aud drink about a gallon of
brandy while waiting for or reading
them.
And thus he passed through life, giving
and assisting to his fullest means, and
leaving to his widow and family an inheri-
tance which would have been larger if he
had been less bountiful. But with that
bounty and his sound honest worth he
purchased the object of every man — the
regard and esteem of his neighbors.
He was interred in the Jewish Cemetery,
the prayers of his faith being read by the
Rev. Joseph Johnston, the Independent
Minister; his Pall (for all his old con-
temporaries were gone) was borne by the
Speaker, Sir Luke Leake, Mr. G. W.
Leake, Q.C., Mr. Samuel Browning, of
(New Zealand, Mr. Glydc, M.L.C., Mr.
Francisco, sen., and Major Finnerty. A
numerous train followed the hearse, and
with heavy hearts saw his remains com-
mitted to the grave.
In August next he would have been 80 ;
and there are few communities, so limited
in numbers as our own, who have had so
long and so conspicuously in their front
one whose worth was so generally recognized
as him whose loss we now record.
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