A History of the Collins Family of Placentia, Newfoundland

A History of the Collins Family of Placentia, Newfoundland Placentia prior to 1896 - MUN collection by John Paul Bradford, MA Last Updated: November 16, 2013 A History of the Collins Family of Placentia, Newfoundland 1 I Introduction Out of the ancient fields of southwest England emerged a family which eventually found its way about two hundred and fifty years ago to the Avalon peninsula in eastern Newfoundland. This paper sets out what we know of the origins of this family, how it probably came to Newfoundland and how its first five generations lived and toiled here. An investigation into the Collins family of Placentia, Newfoundland suffers from the same handicap as most other Newfoundland families in that records for the earliest periods are spotty and for some span of years non-existent. Nevertheless, tombstones, church and government records and several precious and unique early documents and family traditions allow us to identify the main story until more standard references, such as the directories of the mid to late nineteenth century and the censuses of the twentieth, become available. The Collins family has some engaging personalities and unusual experiences making it one of the more intriguing families in the history of Newfoundland. A deliberate choice has been made in this history to include as much original material as possible allowing the reader to taste the flavour of old documents for themselves or to hear the very words written by members of the family in their letters, petitions, non-fiction works and novels. Although this is a Collins history, it seems only fair to include the children of Collins women whose children bear the surnames of their fathers. However, to make this history manageable, their grandchildren are not pursued. We have also chosen to present, where possible, information on the husbands of these Collins women. In An icon of Saint Nicholas of Myra the periods we are studying - roughly 1730 to 1950 - there are not many records available for married women but by presenting the lives of their husbands one can gain an appreciation for the lives they led. This history also includes an extensive section on the Goodall family of Placentia. This seemed reasonable since every Collins of this line in Placentia is also descended from this family. Origin of the Surname For reasons which will become clear later on, the Collins of Placentia are believed to be of English origin.1 The English surname Collins is a “double diminutive” of the Christian name 1 Appendix One at the rear of this volume contains a brief outline of the Irish Collins Family of Placentia. A History of the Collins Family of Placentia, Newfoundland 2 Nicholas. Nicholas was a name introduced into England by the Normans after they conquered the country in 1066. Prior to this, the English used a variety of Anglo-Saxon names most of which have not survived to the present time. Saint Nicholas, the martyr bishop of Myra in Asia Minor in the fourth century A.D., was quite popular in medieval England with many churches dedicated to him. His feast day was and is on December 6. Nicholas became a popular choice as a personal name among many English families including the peasantry. According to P.H. Reaney’s A Dictionary of English Surnames, a pet-form of Nicholas was Col. This shortened form of the name at times picked up the further common diminutive -in producing Col-in.1 This would mean something like “Little Col”. The medieval progenitor of this family was probably baptised Nicholas but he was called Colin and a descendant of his was identified in local records as “Colin’s son” which eventually petrified into a surname without the “son”. Dorsetshire Although we have no evidence any further back than the origin of the surname ( c.1200 - 1350), there are still some things which can be said about the ancestors of our family in the millennia before this. The vehicle we will use is the history of the county of Dorset in southwest England. For reasons explored later in this paper, the author believes that the Collins of Placentia likely originated in this county. Early Dorset was occupied in Mesolithic times and by Neolithic times farmers were prosperous enough to raise large funeral barrows. The Celts arrived c.500 B.C. and by the time of the Roman invasion the county was dominated by the Durotriges tribe. Roman legions swept through the region in the A.D. 50's. The future emperor Vespasian captured Maiden Castle from the Durotriges in A.D. 54. The area was well developed in Roman times with the most important centres being near the coast in the southwest of the county. Durnovaria, originally a Celtic tribal centre, became a Roman centre and is today’s Dorchester. Catholic Christianity was also introduced by the second and third centuries from Gaul. With the withdrawal of Roman legions in A.D. 410 all of Britain became subject to attack from barbarian raiders who eventually settled much of the country. The southwest of England and what is today Wales resisted longer than most areas and Germanic settlers in the form of the Saxons did not overwhelm the county until nearly two centuries later. Then the native tongue changed to Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) and paganism revived. A map of Dorset shows Saxon names on numerous towns and villages. The area was long part of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex. The Norman conquest of 1066 brought changes to the ruling class as Saxon aristocrats were replaced with Norman ones. Castles, monasteries and new church buildings were created in the first three centuries after the Conquest. The Reformation swept away the traditional religion in the 1500's as Calvinist ideas spread amongst the new mercantile classes in England. The altars were stripped and the images destroyed throughout Dorset. In the English civil war of the 1640's, the county was divided between royalists and supporters of Parliament and several battles were fought here. Our Collins had already left Dorset before the Industrial Revolution but even in the 1800's it remained largely rural. A History of the Collins Family of Placentia, Newfoundland 3 The English in Newfoundland The earliest English claim on Newfoundland originated with John Cabot’s voyage of 1497. After this time - and perhaps before - Basque and Portugese fishermen began harvesting the vast cod resource offshore. The English fishery soon followed but for the next two centuries, few settlers remained on the island year round. The crown discouraged settlement fearing it would damage the economy of the counties in southwest England which sent thousands of men every Spring to Newfoundland and welcomed them home every Fall. Eventually, however, small settlements began to spring up. The English dominated the north and east of the Avalon Peninsula and the French the area around Placentia Bay. The typical Englishman involved in this trade came from a farm family in Devon, Dorset or Somerset. They could start quite young and many made journeys for decades. The Newfoundland fishery was, however, never the occupation of average person in this part of England but it was important to the economy. Men and supplies left England for Newfoundland where they fished all Summer from small dories, drying and salting the cod on flakes or stages on shore. When the season was over, the ships broke up their shore facilities and headed to Spain or Portugal where they sold vast quantities of fish for the products of the south including wine to sell on the English market. This trade was already centuries old when our first Collins appears as part of it. History of Placentia to c. 1730 Placentia is located on a low lying triangular flat at the upper part of Placentia Bay, a long arm of the Atlantic Ocean. The town is surrounded by water on almost all sides and is dominated by higher land formations in almost every direction. It is subject to flooding when tide and ocean surges pile up water behind the town. Placentia’s history is unusual in Newfoundland for, although it likely began as a seasonal fishing station for Portugese and Basque fishermen like so many other Avalon communities, it later became the centre of French Newfoundland and eventually was styled its capital. Sir Francis Drake visited the harbour in 1592 and counted up to sixty Basque vessels. The French settlement dates from at least 1611 and was a fortified site. We have extensive records of its early settlers. Almost to a man, however, these settlers or rather their descendants were removed to Nova Scotia in 1713 by the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht and Placentia became English overnight. Poole merchants from Dorsetshire and Bideford merchants from north Devonshire came to dominate trade in Placentia2 and especially the areas around Poole supplied many of the English settlers. One Bideford merchant whose name turns up in connection to the Collins was William Saunders who eventually transferred his headquarters to Poole.3 The English also fortified Placentia and for the whole first period of this story, the presence of the military in the form of both soldiers and the Royal Navy was a fact of life. Placentia was at first larger than the typical Newfoundland community and was at one point larger than the colonial capital of St. John’s. Its prosperity was based on the fishery but it also was economically dependent on the military. Placentia, therefore, should not be thought of as isolated in any way. It also had strong ties to Irish and English merchant houses and, through the military, to both officers and men who had little interest in the fishery.

Load more