Union-Anson County NcArchives Biographies.....Collins, Mrs. W.E. 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Carolyn Shank carolynshank@msn.com May 18, 2007, 7:22 pm

Author: Mrs. J.A. Yarbrough

A Good Story of Mrs. W. Collins                    
Former Marshville Resident Makes Success After the Death of Husband
ATTENDS GILBOA MEET
    Mrs. J.A. Yarbrough in Sunday's Charlotte Observer gives the following 
interesting story of a former Marshville resident:
    At the age of 71, Mrs. W.E. Collins of Charlotte became a business woman. 
    Following the death of her husband in 1933, she assumed active management 
of her large farm on the Pineville road and is known as one of Mecklenburg's 
most successful farmers. She attributes her success to her faithful tenants 
and to her determination to carry on the work which her husband started in 
1906 when he bought the farm without ever having seen it. 
    Until then they had lived in Marshville, but when the town was swept by a 
severe epidemic of typhoid fever in which Mr. Collins almost lost his life, he 
decided to give up his residence there and moved his family to Charlotte.
    It took a strong will to make such a decision, for the town of Marshville 
was named for Mrs. Collins' family and since early manhood Mr. Collins had 
lived in that section, having gone to White Store, 12 miles below Wadesboro, 
to teach school.
    There he met his future wife, Harriet Elizabeth Marsh, whose maternal 
great-grandfather, Colonel Joseph White, founded the community by building 
White's store and setting up his son, William Lilly White, in the mercantile 
business.
    Colonel White was clerk of court of Anson County for many years and he was 
also sheriff. He was seven times elected a representative to the North 
Carolina Assembly, his first term being in 1820 and his last in 1830. He 
married Lucy Lilly, a descendant of Edmund Fleming Lilly, a Revolutionary 
patriot of North Carolina.
    A handsome monument has recently been erected to Col. Joseph White and 
family in the White family cemetery at the site of White's Church which was 
deeded to the Methodist Conference in 1810 by Zachariah White and his wife, 
Susannah, parents of Col. White. 
    Eliza Gordon, granddaughter of Col. White, married Jesse Ellis Marsh and 
they became the parents of Mrs. Collins. Her paternal ancestor, William Marsh, 
came to America from Kent, England, during the reign of Charles I, and settled 
at Plainfield, Conn. He took part in the Indian Wars and was badly wounded in 
the Narragansett Fight in 1675.
    Solomon Marsh, the great-grandfather of Mrs. Collins, came South from 
Plainfield with his mother, Eunice Lathrop Marsh, and his brothers, Thomas and 
Ebenezer, soon after the American Revolution. After living near Charlotte for 
a while they settled on Lanes Creek, near the site of Gilboa Methodist Church, 
a few miles from what is today the town of Marshville.
    Born during the dark days of the War Between the States, Mrs. Collins saw 
and felt the economic disaster that followed war, lived through the period of 
Reconstruction, through panics and other depressing years. At times the clouds 
hung low but there were many days that were happy and bright and she has fond 
memories upon which to feed her soul, as well as the satisfaction of having 
lived an active, useful life these many years.
    "My father went into the mercantile business at White's Store," she 
said. "The post office was there and when any war news came, the Confederate 
flag raised as a signal to the community. On Dec. 16, 1861, when the flag was 
run up, they came hurrying to hear the war news.
    'What is it' they asked a man who was leaving the store. 'It's nothing,' 
he replied. 'Just Jesse Marsh has another baby girl.' But of course that has 
always been an important date to me for that is the day Dr. John A. McRae, the 
beloved physician of Charlotte, brought me into the world."
    "When the call came for the older men and the young boys to go to war, my 
father had to go. He was wounded near Petersburg, was carried to Woodstock, 
Va. and died there in October 1864. (line missing) [Sherman?] was marching 
South brought fear to every home. Rumors of every kind were rife and one of 
the most terrifying was that all little boys would be killed. My mother 
dressed my little brother, Charles, in girl's clothes and taught him to say 
his name was 'Caroline'. All day long the little Negro girl who looked after 
him drilled him. 'What is your name?' she would say, and Charles very quickly 
to answer, 'Caroline.'
    "When the northern soldiers finally came, Charles was in his cradle and 
under the mattress was my father's uniform. But they did not bother him. After 
all that coaching, he did not have to say 'Caroline' once. One of the soldiers 
picked me up and asked, 'Where is your father?' I said, "A mean Yankee killed 
him." He kissed me and said, 'Bless your little soul.' After he was gone, they 
washed my face -- in fact, they literally scrubbed it. 
    "The first school I attended was taught by my Great-grandfather White when 
I was five years of age. I often visited at their home near White's Store and 
distinctly remember going to old White's Church.
    "In 1883 my mother sent me to Thomasville Female college at Thomasville. I 
made the trip from Monroe to Charlotte on the Seaboard, then had to wait there 
for the train to Thomasville. The bus from the Central Hotel met the train and 
I'll never forget how those horses loped through the mud up North Tryon Street 
to the Square. Eccles and Bryan had charge of the Hotel then. Mr. Eccles 
mother lived at the hotel and she always appointed herself as a chaperone to 
the girls. She let us play the piano and we entertained ourselves with the 
stereopticon.
    "Mr. H. W. Rhinehart, the president of the college, was the grandfather of 
Mrs. C. C. Coddington. She was Margie Lyon and was one of the most beautiful 
baby girls I ever saw. Old Trinity college was there then and the boys would 
walk over to see us. The Thomasville Orphanage was started the year I left 
school for I was married Dec. 19, 1886, and we lived at Peachland, before 
going to Marshville.
    "I recently saw one of my schoolmates, Lizzie Liles, whom I had not seen 
since 1885. She is Mrs. A. A. Maynard, the mother of Belvin Maynard, the 
flying parson. She was visiting her granddaughter, Mrs. W. D. Reynolds, and we 
had a busy time trying to tell everything since last we had met." 
    When the Collins family moved to Charlotte they joined the First Baptist 
Church which was then under the ministry of Dr. A. A. Barron. On Mother's Day, 
1946, Mrs. Collins received a lovely basket of flowers as the oldest mother 
present at the church service that morning.
    Every third Sunday in August she goes to the home-coming at the Mt. Olive 
Baptist Church in Anson County where she first attended church as a child and 
later became a member. The Church was organized in 1833 with 21 members, Mrs. 
Collins' great-grandmother, Lavinia Huntley Watts, daughter of Thomas Huntley, 
a Revolutionary soldier, being one of the charter members.
    On June 30th, she attended the centennial anniversary of Gilboa Methodist 
Church. Eighty years had passed since she had been there, and the church had 
been rebuilt twice. When she was asked if she noticed any changes since she 
had been there, they laughed when she replied: "I think you have changed the 
benches since I was here." She remembered as a tiny girl peeping through the 
backs of the seats at the people behind her and now the backs of the pews were 
solid. She scored again with her age at this service being the oldest woman 
present.
    Mrs. Collins has a lovely miniature of her grandmother, Harriet White, 
also of her children: Rose, Ellis, George and Harriet Ruth, now Mrs. J.A. 
Brown. Some of the lovely things in her home move one to envy, particularly 
the antique brass candlesticks with crystal pendants. Of special interest are 
deeds in the classical penmanship of her great grandfather White.
    In regard to servants, Mrs. Collins has a record seldom equaled. In the 40 
years she has lived in Charlotte she has had only three and she has never 
known what it is to be without a servant. A truly fine tribute to her kindness 
of heart and her genuine consideration of all with whom she comes in contact, 
from the highest to the lowest degree.
    For the last two or three years she has consented to take things easy and 
her son-in-law, J.A. Brown, is in active charge of the farm.
 



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