 West Hill Cemetery Sherman, Texas
The Sunday Gazetteer Sunday, February 24, 1895 pg. 4 DIED In Sherman, Texas, after a long and painful illness, on Friday, February 15th, 1895, Richard Collins, aged 71 years and 2 months. Mr. Collins was born near the city of Glasgow, Scotland, and when about nine years of age moved with his parents into the city. He at once entered the coal mines as a laborer, and continued therein until he reached man's estate. During the years of service in the mines, he had become somewhat familiar with the steam engines and machinery used therein, so that upon arriving at his majority he was enabled to secure a more lucrative position in the engineer's department on the steampship line plying between Glasgow and Liverpool. After a few years' service there he entered the employ of the East India Company as engineer and made several trips to and from India. It was while he was in the service of this company that the matter of searching for coal in the India country was instituted by said country, as it was found necessary for vessels in that trade to carry a sufficient supply of coal from England to serve them for the round trip. For this purpose Mr. Collins was put in charge of an expedition, with elephants as transportation, to locate and develop such mines as he might discover. The mines he located were the first ever worked in that country. Upon his return from Indian in 1847, he accepted service with the Cunard line of steamers, then just established between New York and Liverpool, but upon arriving in New York to enter upon his duties and learning that his entering thereon meant an injustice to a good and faithful employe of the company, he refused to accept the position. Being in America he decided to visit some old neighbors who were at work in the coal mines of Pennsylvania before his return. Liking this country so well, he concluded to remain permanently and worked in the above state Mary. and as a miner, stationary and locomotive engineer until about the year 1854, when he moved to Trempeleau county, Wisconsin, than a new country, and secured a tract of government land, and proceeded to make a home for himself and wife who had followed him from "Bonnie Scotland." While improving this new farm it was his custom for several years to go to the coal mines of Illnois, some three hundred miles away, and work in the winter to earn the money necessary for stocking and improving the same. As the only means of public communication between his home and the mines was by stage, he was wont to walk the whole distance each way. He came to Texas in 1875 and bought a tract of unimproved land near Collinsville, in this county, and improved a large farm which he sold in 1885, and, with his wife returned to Scotland to make his future home but, having been so accustomed to the ways and methods of the west, and so thoroughly weaned from the ways and customs of "his ain countrie," that the following year found him back in Texas. He then purchased a farm near the Rock Bluff ferry, some seven miles from Denison, where he lived until about two years ago when, owing to failing health, he deeded the same to an adopted son, that he might have someone to care for himself and his wife in their old age, and moved to Sherman where he has since lived. The writer of this first knew him in the year 1856. He was then as before and ever after, the personification of honesty and personal integrity. That he had faults no one will deny, but deception, duplicity, dishonesty or any species of immorality was not among them. His errors all leaned toward virtue's side. Mr. and Mrs. Collins never had any children of their own, but they have raised and cared for, until they reached a stage of useful man and womanhood, six orphan children. He leaves an aged wife and an adopted granddaughter to mourn his loss. The Odd Fellows, of which order he was a devoted member, cared for him in his last sickness and performed the last sad rites over his mortal remains. D.W. Scottish American Roots West Hill Cemetery Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |
