Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Collins, Horatio 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com November 10, 2007, 3:52 am

Author: Genealogical and Biographical Record of Will County

HORATIO COLLINS. The name of Mr. Collins is closely linked with that of Homer 
Township. Here he was born in 1840 and here his life has been passed. Partly 
by his influence and efforts the township has attained a place among the 
leading agricultural regions of the county. He has been active in extending 
its agricultural  interests. The residence that he now occupies is situated 
within a quarter of a mile of the site of the log cabin where he was born. On 
the old family homestead he conducts general farm pursuits and stock-raising, 
and the two hundred and five acres of improved land pay an annual tribute to 
his careful oversight. The place has been subdivided into fields of convenient 
size for the raising of grain and the pasturage of stock, and buildings have 
been erected as needed.

The Collins family has been represented in this county since 1833, when our 
subject's father, Frederick (who was born in Tioga County, N. Y., in 1812), 
came west with his brother, Addison Collins, Sr., and bought a large tract in 
what is now Homer Township, entering the land at the first land sale in 
Chicago in 1835. A portion of the eight hundred acres then entered by himself 
and brother is still in the possession of the family. He cleared his land and 
placed it under cultivation, afterward residing on it until his death, in 
1897, at eighty-five years of age. During the war he was a stanch supporter of 
the Union. In religion he was connected with the Congregational Church. He 
married Nancy White, who was born near Syracuse, N. Y., and is now living at 
Austin, Ill., at eighty-five years of age. She is  also a member of the 
Congregational Church. They were the parents of three children, now living, 
Horatio, Mrs. Henry Hatch and Henry Bird. The paternal grandfather of our 
subject was Samuel Collins, a native of Connecticut, who about 1800 moved from 
Guilford, that state, to Tioga County, N. Y., and settled in a wilderness 
where the Indians and wild animals still roamed.

The life of the subject of this article has been comparatively uneventful. 
Having always lived on the same farm, content to till the soil, with no desire 
to travel over the country or seek another home, his life has moved along 
quietly and happily, its calm content unmarred by misfortune and vicissitude. 
Among the people in whose neighborhood his life has been passed he is highly 
esteemed as an upright man. In former years he worked with the Republican 
party, but his interest in the cause of prohibition led him to ally himself 
with the party pledged to the support of these principles. Both by example and 
precept he has given his influence toward the advancement of temperance 
principles. He is a Congregationalist, and, with his family, worships with the 
congregation at Homer. In 1874 he married Annie, daughter of Alexander 
Johnson, a native of Scotland. Mrs. Collins was born near Montreal, Canada. 
She came to Will County with her parents in 1856 and was educated in the Will 
County schools. They have an only daughter, Clara.

Additional Comments:
Genealogical and Biographical Record of Will County Illinois Containing 
Biographies of Well Known Citizens of the Past and Present, Biographical 
Publishing Company, Chicago, 1900

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