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Antoine Collins

2,967 bytes added, 06:52, 6 July 2012
added information on children and his death
# Cecelia Collins
# Phoebe Paiban Turvin, widow
 
 
The son of Antoine Collins, Antoine J. Collins, killed Charles Winters in a bar fight in October 1853. He then escaped the Pensacola jail and fled to Texas.<ref name=murder>Times Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 5, 1853, and Daily Alabama Journal, Montgomery, Alabama November 9, 1853. </ref>
 
Eulalie Collins married Horace Higley in Pensacola, Florida May 15, 1827. Mr. Higley became a banker in Mobile, Alabama, where the couple resided. Their son John Hunt Higley was a prominent soldier from Alabama during the Civil War.
 
Mary Louisa Collins married Alexander Hamilton Bowman in Pensacola, Florida February 19, 1835. Alexander Bowman was a graduate of West Point, an army engineer, and was the superintendent of West Point during the Civil War.
 
Cecelia Collins married four times Her second husband was John W. Rochelle, they were married June 25, 1849. He was both a soldier and plantation owner. She had one daughter with Mr. Rochelle, and one son with her fourth husband Francis L. Norton, they were married August 13, 1859.
 
The stepdaughter of Antoine Collins, Teresa Robina married Adam Cornelius Hollinger of Baldwin County, Alabama in 1821 in Pensacola. His stepson James is never found again in records.
 
Antoine Collins' children left the city of Pensacola and resided in Mobile, Alabama and Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.
 
Antoine Collins killed himself December 1865 by jumping out of a third story window at a hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The following news article details his death.
 
New Orleans Times, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 29, 1865
 
"Antoine Collins, aged about 80 years, committed suicide in Philadelphia by jumping from a third story window of the United States hotel. Deceased was a proprietor of a large hotel in Pensacola, Fla and during the war lost all his property. He had recently been subject to fits of temporary derangement."
 
He is buried in Union Cemetery, presumably in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<ref name=death>[Ancestry.com. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Death Certificates Index, 1803-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
Original data:
"Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803–1915." Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2008, 2010. From originals housed at the Philadelphia City Archives. "Death Records."</ref>.The data states he was married, and not widowed, but no death information or burial has been found at this time for his wife Mary Collins.
 
==Life in Pensacola==
Census records for 1850 and 1860 indicate that Mary Pyburn and her son, Antoine Collins, Jr. owned slaves, but that Antoine Collins Sr. did not. The 1860 United States Census for Escambia County also shows Antoine Collins net worth as $ 500 for private property in 1860, but his wife Mary had a net worth of $8000 real estate and $14000 for private property. His daughter Cecelia, at this time the wife of Francis Norton, is listed with private property valued at $1500. Perhaps bringing truth to the words penned by resident I. A. Allen in the Pensacola Journal, that "his wife was said to be a long ways better man than he." <ref name=jenny>[Pensacola Journal, April 2nd, 1905, Second Section, in an article by I. E. Allen http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87062268/1905-04-02/ed-1/seq-9/;words=Pyburn+Marie+Marys?date1=1836&date2=1922&searchType=advanced&lccn=sn87062268&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=mary+pyburn&dateFilterType=yearRange&index=1]</ref>
 
Antoine Collins purchased Phoebe Turvin's land shortly after it was affirmed in 1831 by the United States Government.<ref name=jen8> [Spanish land grants are digitalized online at http://www.floridamemory.com/collections/spanishlandgrants/ Spanish Land Grants and indexed by name. The information is also in Volume 3 of the American State Papers, Land records, available in most libraries, which is also indexed (available online)Chelsea Title and guarantee company, 2 pages, Land Commissioners to Phoebe Turvin, Phoebe Turvin to Antonio Collins.]</ref>. The location of his plantation, and that of Phoebe's is north of the city of Pensacola. The term the Antoine Collins Grant is still used to refer to the geographical areas of the original land patents and is located near the modern day town of Molino. <ref name=land>[The land that Phoebe Pyburn Turvin sold to Antonio Collins was bordered by the Francisco Collins grant and if further north. Both the Antonio Collins Grant and Francisco Collins Grant have GNIS coordinates.]</ref>
Newspaper accounts reported nationwide the fire at the hotel run by the Collins in 1841, and then again in 1852 when their was a second fire this time at their home.<ref name=fire>[New Bedford Register, New Bedford, Massachusetts, March 10, 1841, also in the Times Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana, February 25, 1841, and several others in 1841. Daily National Intelligencer, Washington, D.C., October 28, 1852, picked up from the Mobile Advertiser on October 19th.]</ref> In 1841 after the first fire, Mary and Antoine moved the hotel to their plantation, named Live Oaks <ref name="jenny"/>, and rebuilt the hotel.<ref name=rebuild>[Times Picayune, New Orleans, July 29, 1858 mentions a man leaping out of a window at the Collins Hotel]</ref> According to I. E. Allen, the hotel was called the St. Mary Hotel. The As Mr. Allen states, the Collins Hotel often had balls he mentioned were also carried , some of these events made it into society news in newspapers as far away as papers throughout the country.<ref name=ball>[National Gazette, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 22, 1827 and Charleston Courier, Charleston, South Carolina, March 29, 1827]</ref><ref name=jenny/>
Census records for 1850 and 1860 indicate that Mary Pyburn and her son==Lifetime Events of Note==In November 1818, Antoine Collinsan article in the Mississippi State Gazette, Jr. owned slaves, but Natchez Mississippi (picked up nationwide) reports that Antoine Collins Sr. did not. The 1860 United States Census for Escambia County also shows Antoine Collins net worth as $ 500 for private property recently arrived in 1860Mobile, but his wife Mary had a net worth of $8000 real estate and $14000 for private property. His daughter Cecelia, at this time reported the wife city of Francis Norton, is listed with private property valued at $1500. Perhaps bringing truth Pensacola was to be given over to the words penned any Spanish authority by resident ICol. King. A. Allen similar article appeared in February 8, 1819 in the Pensacola JournalMobile Gazette, and was picked up nationwide, that "his wife was said Jacob Pyburn, Antoine's nephew by marriage, had recently arrived to be Mobile and reported of a long ways better man than he." r\<ref name=jenny>[force of Spanish ships that had recently arrived at Pensacola Journal, April 2nd, 1905, Second Section, in an article by I. E. Allen http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87062268/1905-04-02/ed-1/seq-9/;words=Pyburn+Marie+Marys?date1=1836&date2=1922&searchType=advanced&lccn=sn87062268&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=mary+pyburn&dateFilterType=yearRange&index=1]</ref>
The son of Antoine Collins, Antoine J. Collins, killed Charles Winters in a bar fight in October 1853. He then escaped the Pensacola jail and fled to Texas.<ref name=murder>Times Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana, October 5, 1853, and Daily Alabama Journal, Montgomery, Alabama November 9, 1853.
==Lifetime Events of Note==
Antoine Collins provided information on the British to the Americans during the War of 1812.<ref name=spy>[Jackson, Andrew; Smith, Sam B; Owsley, Harriet;Moser, Harold (1996) Tennessee:University of Tennessee, p305 and 507 http://books.google.com/books?id=lBedSM3L4qIC&pg=PA305&dq=antoine+collins+pensacola&hl=en&sa=X&ei=AHX2T8HRLsqqrQGg6ayLCQ&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=antoine%20collins%20pensacola&f=false</ref>
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