Wikipedia would seem to back you up:
The town was originally two villages, Little Marsden and Great Marsden. A small mill had been established by the Ecroyd family at Edge End as early as 1740, and there were two
coal mines nearby, but it was the coming of the
Leeds and Liverpool Canal in 1796, followed by the
East Lancashire Railway Line in 1849, that spurred its development as an industrial town, with an economy based mainly upon
cotton weaving.
There was already a Marsden on the railway network in the neighbouring county of Yorkshire (
West Riding), so the new
railway station was called the Nelson Inn, Great Marsden, after the adjacent
public house, the Lord Nelson Inn named after
Admiral Lord Nelson, from which the town also in time derived its name.
Also page 2 of this interesting document:
www.lancashire.gov.uk/environment/.../
NelsonComplete_LowRes.pd...
Edit - sorry can't get that link to work. If you google Nelson Lancashre history it should be the third item to come up in the list of results.