Fayette County PA Archives Biographies.....Collins, John December 7, 1815 - ????
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Marta Burns marta43@juno.com August 31, 2024, 1:21 pm

Source: Gresham and Wiley, 1889: Biographical & Portrait Cyclopedia, Fayette Co, PA, pg 155
Author: John H. Gresham & Samuel T. Wiley

    Colonel John Collins, one of the prominent and popular 
attorneys of Fayette county bar, is the gentleman whose name 
stands at the head of this sketch.  His career has been a 
long life of public service and public usefulness.  He is a 
good citizen, a safe lawyer and a Christian gentleman.
    Colonel John Collins was born in Connellsville, December 
7, 1815.  He is the son of James Collins and Huldah Tharp 
Collins.
    Colonel Collins' father was a native of Westmoreland 
county, a tailor by trade, who came to Connellsville in 1814 
and did a large business until his death in 1841.  His 
grandfather Collins was from Ireland, and was a Westmoreland 
county farmer until his death.  His mother's maiden name was 
Hulda Tharp; her father, Moses Tharp, stopped in Fayette 
county on his way from New Jersey to the Miami country in 
Ohio.  He died after being in this county about one year.
    Colonel Collins was raised in Connellsville, and 
received a common school education.  He learned the tailor 
trade and continued that business some time after his 
father's death.  He had a natural disposition to the law, 
and a strong inclination for it, but before he was ready to 
pursue the study of the legal profession, he was elected 
register and recorder of the orphan's court of Fayette 
county, Penna, overcoming a large standing democratic 
majority.  He served as register and recorder from 1854 to 
1857, the duties of which responsible office he discharged 
with fidelity to the interests of the people and with honor 
to himself.
    In 1857 he was admitted to the bar, and after practicing 
tow years he was taken up by the republican party and 
elected to the lower house of the state legislature.  He 
served two terms, serving as chairman of the committee on 
railroads, and during his second term was on the judiciary 
committee.
    He was elected a member of the Pennsylvania 
constitutional convention of 1872.  His popularity enabled 
his political party, although in the minority, to elect him 
as herein before stated.
    When quite a young man, he was commissioned colonel of a 
Fayette county militia regiment by Governor David R Porter.  
The command of this regiment, he held for nearly seven 
years.
    Colonel John Collins was united in marriage in 1840 to 
Miss Eliza McDonald of Brownsville who died in 1852.  Her 
father, Hugh McDonald, was a weaver by trade, and came from 
Ireland.  He was married again in 1855 to Elizabeth 
Caldwell, who is still living.
    Colonel Collins has six children living, namely: Mrs 
Sally Ann Bryson, James Collins and David F Collins, Mrs 
Belle Mouck, Mrs Lide Reisinger, and Mrs Mary Mitchell.
    He owns fifty acres of land adjoining the Borough of 
Uniontown, and was acquired by honest by honest and 
judicious management such a sum as to be well fixed in life 
in his old days. 

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2000.

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