History of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, 1887



Collins Family - HON. EMERSON COLLINS Biography

Hon. Emerson Collins, an attorney at law in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, was born in Hepburn township, Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, April 30, i860. His great-great-grandfather was Scotch-Irish and came from Ireland at a date unknown, but probably about 1725. His great-grandfather was William Collins, born in Pennsylvania, who came to Lycoming county in 1783, and became a large landowner. Subsequently he removed to Ohio, where his death occurred. He was a farmer by occupation. He served in the Revolutionary war. He was of the adventurer type of pioneer manhood. He married Affa Brewster, whose ancestry is unknown. Among the children of this marriage was one named Jeremiah, born about 1800, in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania. He spent his entire life in that section of the state and died in 1890.

John Collins, son of Jeremiah Collins, and the father of Emerson Collins, of whom this sketch is written, was born in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, 1829, and is living at the present time 0905). By occupation he is a farmer. In 1852 he married Catherine Hyde, born in 1835, died in 1882. She was the daughter of George Hyde, who was born about 1804, and was the son of Jacob George Hyde, the founder of the family in America. Jacob George Hyde was born in Pfulligen, Wurtemberg, Germany, and was a member of a family of considerable prominence there, holding an important position. He came to America about 1804 and located in Hepburn township, Lycoming county, Pennsylvania. The following are the children of John and Catherine Hyde Collins: William George, who died in 1884, aged thirty-one years, unmarried. Emmarine, who became the wife of John Franklin Ball, and they reside on the old homestead in Hepburn township. Emerson, whose name heads this sketch. Mary Alice, unmarried, residing at home. Herman Le Roy, on the editorial staff of the Philadelphia " Press," residing in Philadelphia; he married Margaret Green Johnson in 1892, who died in 1895; they had one child, who is also deceased. Harry Ellwood, who died in 1890, aged twenty years. Edgar Thomas, who graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in the class of 1897, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the regular army. He was present in the Santiago campaign of 1898, serving on the staff of General Ludlow in the battle of El Caney, afterwards serving with his regiment, the Eighth Infantry, in the Philippine Islands during the insurrection, and he is now captain in the Sixth Regiment of Infantry. In 1898 he married Margaret Van Horn, daughter of Colonel James J. Van Horn, deceased, late of the United States army. They have two children, Margaret Katharine, born May 24, 1190O and Elizabeth Van Horn, born October 20, 1905.

Emerson Collins was educated in the public schools of Hepburn township, at the Lycoming County Normal School, and graduated from Lafayette College in 1884, taking a classical course. He had the historical honors of the class. After completing his educational course he taught school for some time and was assistant and principal of the Lycoming County Normal School, at Muncy, Pennsylvania, from 1884 to 1886. He read law with Hon. Henry C. Parsons, at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and was admitted to the bar of Lycoming county in 1886, and has been since then in the active practice of his profession. He has done considerable work as a public speaker on the various historical and anniversary occasions in his section of the state, having made something of a specialty in the study of American History and the collection of Americana. Politically Mr. Collins is a Republican. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature from 1894 to 1896. Among the positions he has held may be mentioned that of member of the board of managers of the Pennsylvania Industrial Reformatory, at Huntington, from 1897 to 1902, serving as president of that board for two years, being appointed to such position by Governor Hastings. He has served as county chairman of the Republican party in Lycoming county, also in the heated presidential campaign of l900 was with the national committee at Chicago and spoke for it in various western states.

Emerson Collins was married in December, 1888, to Anna Holstein Johnson, daughter of Hon. Henry Johnson (see sketch elsewhere). One child has been born to Mr. and Mrs. Collins, Helen Johnson Collins, born October 13, 1904. Mr. and Mrs. Collins are Episcopalians in religious belief.

It is worthy of note that his paternal and maternal ancestors have resided in Lycoming county upwards of one hundred years. The old homestead in Hepburn township, still in the family possession, and where his mother and he and his brothers and sisters were born, has been the home of four generations of his family, covering a period of about one hundred years. His father, John Collins, has resided there since 1853.


Source: Genealogical and Personal History of Lycoming County, John W. Jordan, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1906.










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