MAN FOUND DROWNED

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 9, 12 January 1932, Page 10

MAN FOUND DROWNED

PROBABLE IDENTITY

EIGHTY YEARS IN COUNTRY

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") '■ . PALMERSTON-N., This Day. On Sunday the body of an old man was found in the Manawatii Eiver. Information received by the police would seem to show that the victim' was one of New Zealand's earliest pioneers. The body has' been identified as that of a man who gave Ms name as Sam Den- j nis, of Invercargill, and his age as 82.

Three people stated to the police that an old man answering to. the published description had called on them soliciting work. He was destitute and hungry, and gave his name as Sam. Dennis, of Invercargill. Ho declared tihat he came to New Zealand at the age of two years, and had been in Auckland 80 years ago. He claimed further that he lived with Bishop Selwyn, and had assisted him in translating the New Testament into Maori. He garo his informant to understand that he had no relatives in the Dominion, and that, his father, who had belonged to the Boyal Engineers, had been drowned in Auckland.