New Zealand Firsts...

Three days after arriving in the Bay of Islands, Rev Samuel Marsden held the first Christmas Day service on New Zealand soil and preached to European and Maori alike who had assembled on the slopes of Oihi under the shadow of Chief Ruatara's pa at Rangihoua.

The three original missionary families, Hall, Kendall and King, together with Thomas Hansen and his mother, Hannah, lived in a temporary, native style 'long house' until more permanent houses could be built. Here, in February 1815, Hannah King (nee Hansen) gave birth to Thomas Holloway King, the first European child to be born in New Zealand. Thomas also died here, less than four years later and was the first European child to be buried in New Zealand's first European cemetery.