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Collins Family Papers

 Collection
Identifier: SFHL-RG5-173

Scope and Contents

The collection contains correspondence, journals of Francis W. Collins, including descriptions of his student days at Friends Boarding School in Providence; family business and financial papers; miscellaneous papers, photographs, and genealogical material on the Collins and Burdick families.

Dates

  • Creation: 1797-1937

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Some of the items in this collection may be protected by copyright. The user is solely responsible for making a final determination of copyright status. If copyright protection applies, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder or their heirs/assigns to reuse, publish, or reproduce relevant items beyond the bounds of Fair Use or other exemptions to the law. See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/.

Biographical / Historical

Abel Collins (1770-1834) was born in Hopkinton, Rhode Island, one of the eleven children of Amos and Thankful (Clark) Collins. Other children were John (b. 1781) and Hannah Earle (1786-1819). Abel was a birthright Quaker and a minister recorded by Hopkinton Monthly Meeting. He married Mary A. Wilbur (d. 1858) of Hopkinton in 1790. Between 1794-1809, Abel and Mary Collins had eight children who survived to adulthood: Deborah, Mary W., Phebe, Timothy Clark, Abigail, twins Amos Wilbur and Thankful, and Abel Francis.

Abel Francis Collins (b. 1809) lived on the Collins farmstead, which he named Prospect Vale, in North Stonington, Connecticut. In 1844 he married Electa Jane Collins (1818-1896), the daughter of Job Scott and Ruth Hall Collins of Utica, New York. Electa Collins had two brother, both medical doctors, Chalkley Collins, who died in his twenties, and Clarkson Thomas Collins (1821-1881). Clarkson T. Collins married Lydia Coffin in 1844 and established a medical practice in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where he founded the Invalid's Hotel for the treatment of chronic diseased.

Abel F. and Electa J. Collins had three sons, Francis Wendell (1845-1887), Clarkson Abel (b. 1853), and Abel Chalkley (b. 1857). All three sons attends Friends Boarding School in Providence, Rhode Island, and continued their studies at Brown University. Chalkley Collins practiced as an attorney in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and Clarkson was a lawyer in New York City. Francis W. Collins moved to Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island, where he taught elementary school. In 1877 he married Alice V. Burdick. They moved to Woodland, California, where Francis operated a nursery business, "Ornamental Trees." They had one son, Francis Winfield Collins.

Extent

4 linear ft. (8 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

The Collins family was a Quaker family of New England and New York City. Abel Collins (1770-1834) was a birthright Quaker and a minister recorded by Hopkinton Monthly Meeting. He married Mary A. Wilbur (d. 1858) of Hopkinton in 1790, and they had eight children. One of their sons, Abel Francis Collins, was clerk of South Kingston Monthly Meeting. He had three sons who attended Friends Boarding School in Providence, Rhode Island, and continued their studies at Brown University. The collection contains extensive family correspondence (1812-1903) which covers a variety of topics, including schools and education, Quaker concerns, topical events of the day, and family life; journals of Francis W. Collins, including descriptions of his student days at Friends Boarding School in Providence; family business and financial papers; miscellaneous papers, photographs, and genealogical material on the Collins and Burdick families.

Arrangement

The collection is divided into five series:

  1. Biographical and genealogical
  2. Correspondence
  3. Journals
  4. Business and Financial
  5. Miscellaneous

Physical Location

For current information on the location of materials, please consult the Library's online catalog

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchase, Tolles Fund, 1993; Accession number: 1993.056. Apparently the collection was preserved by Francis Winfield Collins; he compiled much of the genealogical information and identified individuals in the family album in 1954, according to a pencil notation.

Gift of William Cox, Acc. 2017.021. Per donor's suggestions, four letters written in 1876 by Clarkson Collins to family and one undated letter written by Rebecca Coffin to Electa Collins were added to Series 2.

Separated Materials

The following materials have been removed from the collection:

  1. 2 volumes of genealogy transferred to book stacks; genealogical charts photocopied from the back of these volumes and included in folder 1: Noyes Genealogy, descendants of Rev. James Noyes, Vol. I and II, collected by Henry E. and Harriet E. Noyes (Boston, Mass, 1904.)

Processing Information

Received unprocessed, sorted into general topics.

Title
Collins Family Papers, 1797-1937
Author
FHL staff
Date
1994
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
English

Find It at the Library

Most of the materials in this catalog are not digitized and can only be accessed in person. Please see our website for more information about visiting or requesting repoductions from Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College Library

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