John Clark Collection
Rev. D. Lindley (1801-80) was An American missionary who arrived in South Africa in 1835 and after mission work elsewhere came to Natal in May 1837. By the year 1840, he was a minister to the Voortrekkers and had settled in Pietermaritzburg in the Pastorie there. He enjoyed great esteem among them and, later, among the British settlers. In 1847 he resigned from his post with the Voortreekkers and begin missionary work among the Zulus of the Inanda location near Durban. In 1873 he resigned and returned to the U.S.A to live there permanently. He endeared himself so much to the Voortrekkers that they named a small town in the Orange Free State after him. In the course of his service among them, he had baptized 1383 children, confirmed 583, and married 97 couples. The Boers, good frontiersmen themselves, appreciated his skill as a marksman and horseman.