November, 2000 Colliers of Massachusetts Research Update Nov. 22, 2000 "Since brevity is the soul of wit... I will be brief..." Hamlet, Act II Scene ii, round about line 80... Wishing a "Happy Thanksgiving" and a blessed Christmas season to all the Collier family and friends! Well, I will be as brief as I possibly can be. My sons have told me that they are tired of all the "Gershom begot, subject to revision..." stuff, and just want to see the final product. I can't provide that yet -- see me in a year and a half or so -- but I have collected considerable new data over the past few months, and want to pass a progress report on to everyone. This will be just an overall view, listing the areas of my current research. If anyone wants specific data at this time, please write me. In addition to distributing this letter to all of my e-mail correspondents, and all my "regular mail" correspondents, it will be posted on various Internet genealogy forums, in the hope of attracting "new" Collier family members. This policy has been very successful in the past. As always, my thanks to all who have contributed - and continue to contribute - to this group effort. Please let me know of any gross error or stupidity on my part. When I reach the point of publication, in perhaps 1 1/2 or 2 years, my intention is NOT to publish information on living individuals, unless I have express permission. Please consider either providing the most current family data, or telling me that you do not want current Collier family members included in the published book. Connections, and more connections !! The number of descendants of Thomas and Susannah Collier keeps growing as we can see more and more of the overall picture. As of today, the total number of individuals in my computerized file is 3,792, including spouses of direct descendants. I have information on hand, but not yet added to the database, on 200 - 300 more individuals. Of this total, 392 are of the Collier (365) or Collyer (27) surname -- remember that some of the Moses Collier line in New Jersey adopted the latter spelling. Other surnames with large numbers are: Pratt, 235; Copeland, 207; and Loring, 170. Between September, when I sent out my last general update, and early November, my genealogy efforts were focused on checking and posting known sources, bringing my Family Tree Maker file and my paper files into some approximation of order, and only to a lesser degree actively seeking new material. I have added information on a few individuals from various lines, and have been given two very useful items: a very complete file on the descendants of Bridget Collier (1740-1795), who m. Aaron Pratt (1734-1811), courtesy of Vic Hillard, and a short but fact-filled article from an old issue of The American Genealogist, courtesy of Mary Beth Wheeler. Two weeks ago, I spent a full day at the New England Historic Genealogical Society and obtained enough new and supplementary material to keep me busy for many weeks. As always, some promising sources of information did not work out, but there were new surprises to take their place. A continuing problem is the lack of hard information on individuals who moved to Boston. More prominent persons may be mentioned in several sources, while others may have just a "married X , of Boston," or may just disappear after birth in Hull or Hingham. Librarians have told me that "Vital Records" are non-existent for an estimated 75% of Boston's citizens for the period 1760 - 1800. Among new correspondents since September - and new contributors in most cases - are Vic Hillard, Ed and Merrill Spaeth, Mary Beth Wheeler, and Lin Wright. In addition to visiting Hingham, Cohasset, and Hull at the time of the Collier-Lincoln Reunion in August, I was recently able to make a brief visit to Scituate. I certainly cannot say that I have exhausted the resource possibilities in these home towns of the Collier clan, but I have at least passed through them. I have some photos which I have started posting on my Internet homepage. I also have added some photos of my Ohio branch, and will be happy to post any other portraits or graphics that you might have. Latest research updates on selected lines -- generally following birth order, as given in my "Overview" of May 21, 2000: 2d Generation - Moses (2) Collier (ca. 1625 - 1684): Roger Smith recently provided confirmation of his birth year, from a Middlesex County, Mass. court record. Otherwise, I have nothing new on his branch. We need to find a friend or Collier descendant in New Jersey, preferably in Middlesex or Somerset County. 3d Generation - Regarding the marriages of 5 Collier descendants (Jane and Elizabeth Baker, and Elizabeth, Jane and Experience Collier) into the Loring family -- all are listed in the Loring Genealogy, Charles Henry Pope and Katherine Peabody Loring, Cambridge, Mass., 1917. This a well organized and researched book, and follows the various lines down to the early 20th Century. I have only started transcribing the new information into my files -- I had many of the individuals in the early generations already It would appear that the largest number of Collier descendants in these lines comes from the marriage of John Loring (1680-1720) and Jane Baker (1687-1724), many of whose children went to Maine, and that Elizabeth Baker (ca. 1691-1715) and Experience Collier (1694-1717) had no surviving children. There will be at least 200 - 300 individuals in the Collier - Loring lines. Of the 4th generation, children of Lt. Gershom Collier and Elizabeth Poole -- Judith, who married Cromwell Lobdell, in Hull, 1726 -- I cannot be certain of her date of death, nor do I yet find any information on two surviving children. Although "Judith, wife of Cromuall, [died in Hull] Mar 4, 1740," both Cromwell and Judith are listed as heirs of Gershom Collier in documents of 1749 and 1753. The NEHGS had the "Lobdell Family," J. H. Lobdell, 1907. The portion on the Hull family is only a few pages long, disorganized, but does show that there were several individuals named Cromwell Lobdell. Susannah, whose second husband was Thomas Copeland, whom she married about 1722-23 -- The Copeland Family, W. T. Copeland, Tuttle, Pub., 1937, does not list the marriage date, but does indicate that the family lived in Braintree, which we knew already. Both Thomas and Susannah are listed in a 1753 partition document, so must have died after that time. I have not found vital records listing either marriage or death. The Copeland book is a large, well used volume, and there are several hundred descendants of the couple listed. Mary, married Joseph Spear in 1720, he dying in 1737 or (more likely)1738. Some records say that Mary later married Richard Stubbs, but she was called Mary Collier Spear as late as 23 March, 1753, per "Collier Notes," The American Genealogist, Vol. 19, (1942), pages 43-44. There is no indication that she had children by Richard Stubbs. Several of the Spear family lived in Boston or Cambridge, and several were merchants there. (There are at least 3 Spear genealogies: The Speare Family, C. L. Speare, Tuttle, 1938, available over the Internet and at the NEHGS, is oddly organized and has numerous errors -- avoid it. The Ancestry of Annis Spear 1775-1858 of Litchfield, Maine, Walter Goodman Davis, The Southworth-Anthoensen Press, Portland, ME, 1945 (reprinted 1987) is limited in scope; but The Descendants of George Spear 1642-1988, Verne Raymond Spear, West Hawley, MA, 1988, seems both well organized and complete. I have not started adding the later lines to my files yet.) One of the Spear-Collier descendants was Grace Spear (1751-1816), who married William Foster, merchant of Boston. There is nothing more than that bare fact in the Spear books, but, in an example of how useful the computer is in genealogy, I did a search for "Mary Collier" on the Internet, and one of the documents popped up was Foster Genealogy, Frederick Clifton Pierce, Chicago: W.B. Conkey Co., 1899. A quick look at this showed that Sally Foster, daughter of Grace and William Foster, had married Harrison Gray Otis, well known Boston lawyer and politician. An early Otis genealogy - the first Otis had been of Hingham, and was a witness to the Thomas (1) Collier will - confirms the Harrison Otis - Sally Foster marriage. I don't know why this was missed by the Spear authors. Otis was variously a Congressman, U. S. Senator, Mayor of Boston, and at one time was asked, but declined, to run for Governor of Massachusetts. "Harry" and Sally Otis were famous and charming hosts, and were friends of most of the well known people of the day. (There is a well known portrait of Sally Otis by Gilbert Stuart, which I have put on my homepage.) They lived successively in 3 homes in the Beacon Hill area, all designed by Bulfinch, and the first 2 built during the time that Gershom Collier "of Boston and Chesterfield" lived in the area. To bring this aside to a merciful end, when I saw the name of Harrison Gray Otis, I knew we had another interesting Collier connection -- the historian Samuel Eliot Morison (1887-1976). Author of many books on American and naval history, Prof. Morison has long been one of my idols, and I recalled from one of his short pieces that he was a descendant of Otis. Therefore, he was also a Thomas Collier descendant, adding yet another to the list of authors in that line. His daughter, Emily, was long the editor of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Thomas, of Hull, Scituate, and Chesterfield, born 1706, m. Bridget Southworth - Of the children of this couple, information is partial on several. (1) Thomas Collier (b. 1736) may have been the individual of that name who moved to Dorchester (hometown of his wife) in 1784-85, but information is lacking. There were Colliers there for another generation or two. (2) Gershom Collier (b. 1738) was almost certainly the person of that name at the Boston Tea Party, and may be the "Southworth" Collier who married in Boston, and was in Hull in 1771. It is certain that he married in Scituate in 1783, and was in Northport, Waldo County, Maine by about 1797, where he died. (Scattered later information known.) (3) Bridget Collier (b. 1740) m. Aaron Pratt, of Cohasset, and that family record is very complete down to the present day. (4) William Collier (b. 1742) - NOT the William who married Judith Briggs of Scituate - married Sarah Binney of Hull - possibly lived in Boston until late in life. This information is new, located in Genealogy of the Binney Family in the United States, Charles J. F. Binney, Albany, NY, Joel Munsell's Sons, 1886. (5) Jane Collier (b. 1744) m. Lt. John House, of Hanover, Mass., and they seem to have been the first of the family to move to the wilds of Chesterfield, Hampshire County, Mass. I am in touch with descendants, and scattered information is available in printed records, as well. (6) Mary (b. 1746) married and seems to have stayed in Scituate. I lose track of this family after a few generations. (7) Ephraim "Bosworth" (b. 1748), of Hull and Boston, almost certainly my ancestor -- nothing new located. Jane Collier (b. 1710) -- More information located, particularly in The Doane Family, Alfred Alder Doane, Vol. 1, Boston, 1902. This expands and confirms what I already had. She and her last two husbands are well noted in Boston records. I have scattered later records down to the present day. John Collier (b. 1716) -- Mary Beth Wheeler has provided a record showing that he was alive in 1753, living in Boston. Nothing else certain yet. Jonathan Collier (b. 1719) -- No death record yet located. A few scattered records are found in the Groton, Mass. area, and the descendants of one daughter are traced down to about 1924 in Rutland County, Vermont. (The Farwell Family, Volume 1. Compiled by Jane Harter Abbott and Lillian M. Wilson. (Rutland, Vermont): Frederick H. Farwell and Fanny Barber Farwell, 1929. The only surviving son I have found a record of -- Gershom "of Farmington, Maine," b. 1765 -- was there by 1787, after possibly serving in the Army at a very young age. Scattered later information is known. William Collier (b. 1721) m. Judith Briggs of Scituate -- Well documented down to the present day, including extensive entries in Scituate and Cohasset Vital Records, the Davenport "Genealogies of the Families of Cohasset," and in Gilbert Tower's genealogy. Moses Collier (b. 1729) -- married Susannah Foster, lived and had children in Boston. Was a boat builder, according to Gilbert Tower. Little else known at present. My current distribution list for these newsletters, perhaps of interest: Poole family (Lt. Gershom Collier m. Judith Poole, Hull) Larry Chamberlain William Collier - Judith Briggs line ("Colliers of Cohasset," although the names are not quite synonymous) Alice Williams Sarge Collier Thomas Paine Frances Maroni Christopher Collier James. L. Collier Moses Collier line (to New Jersey ca. 1680) -- Tim Kelley Aaron Pratt - Bridget Collier line -- Joel Pratt Vic Hillard ?? Jane Collier - John Doane line -- Lin Wright Susannah Collier - Thomas Copeland line -- William B. Copeland Jane Collier - John House line (Chesterfield) Ed and Merrill Spaeth Gershom Collier of Northport, Maine - Abigail Nash line -- Michael Collier, David Collier, Sunni Bergeron Linda Peacock Gershom Collier of Farmington, Maine line -- Georgia Murray Descended from the Porters/half siblings Gershom Collier - Mary Kittle of Boston and Chesterfield line - 3 lines 1) Madison Collier branch -- Tammy Thayer Stevens 2) Ohio branch (John Collier - Mary Samson)-- Elva Collier Cahill Virgil Collier Carolyn Ellis Gerald Jacobs Others in my immediate family 3) William Collier branch (some moved to upstate New York)-- Paul Watson Linda Ayukawa Other Collier researchers, friends, etc. Roger Smith (Coller/Collar family of Mass.) Lindsay Collier -- possibly our line Ann Van Deusen -- descended from a Collier of Boston, 18th Century Bob Coller David Pane-Joyce -- Scituate and Eastham researcher Doug Cruger Wade Collier (11) (Reid 10, Randolph 9, Christopher 8, John 7, Gershom 6, Bosworth 5, Thomas 4, Gershom 3, Thomas 2, 1) 218 Leominster Road Lunenburg, Mass. 01462 (978) 582-4323 wcollier@massed.net < http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/c/o/l/Wade-Collier-MA/index.html >