Collins and Reed

Two free families of color from the Virginia Piedmont, whom census takers counted white, free colored, slave and mulatto by turns. Thomas Collins was taxed as "Molata" on the Flat River of North Carolina in 1755; his people settled beyond the colony's line on the New River by the 1770s and were carried west through Russell County, Virginia, and the Big Sandy country to Clay County, Kentucky. The Reeds, whose founder William Read was called "Malatta" in Charles City County, Virginia, about 1673, came out of the New River country of Ashe County, North Carolina, to Clay County too. There Jesse Collins married Mary Reed in December 1827, probably on the same day her brother Stephen married, and the families went on together to the Reed settlement near Martinsville, Morgan County, Indiana, and to Missouri and Appanoose County, Iowa. Their daughter Mary Elizabeth "Polly" Collins married into the Bruner family in 1850, and her line runs on through the Bruners and the Cliffords to the Holbrooks.

The line walks up through every ancestor of Mary Elizabeth Collins: the Collinses through her father, the Reeds through her mother, Mary Reed.

The line at a glance

The Collinses: Thomas Collins "Molata" (c. 1700 - c. 1770) > John Collins (c. 1736) [or his brother Samuel] > Meredith Collins (c. 1760 - 1841) > Jesse Collins (c. 1804 - 1847) = Mary Reed > Mary Elizabeth "Polly" Collins (1827 - 1887) = Eli Woodruff Bruner > Mariah Emma Bruner = John Marshall Clifford > Jessie Lorene Clifford = Capt. Richard Blackmer Holbrook Jr. > Richard Clifford Holbrook > Frances Fairchild Holbrook

The Reeds: William Read "Malatta" (b. c. 1673, Charles City Co, Virginia) [?] > ... several generations not traced ... > Hugh Reed Sr. (d. bef. the end of 1786, Rowan Co, North Carolina) [?] > James Reed (b. c. 1766-75; d. bef. 6 Jan 1845, Morgan Co, Indiana [or c. 1841, Clay Co, Kentucky]) = Susannah, maiden name unknown > Mary Reed (c. 1804 - c. 1852) = Jesse Collins

The weakest links

• John or Samuel > Meredith (possible either way): no document names Meredith's father. The book Molata leans to John, whose son Lewis stood beside Meredith on McDaniel's company list; Heinegg groups most of the New River men under Samuel. Thomas is Meredith's grandfather either way.
• Thomas > John (probable): Heinegg's probable son. There may have been two Johns.
• Meredith > Jesse (probable): no record names Jesse's father; his age, Meredith's 1810 household and his brother Hiram's witnessing of his consent note make him Meredith's son by Polly Holloway. The older chain Meredith > Bradley > Jesse is withdrawn.
• Jesse and Mary Reed > Mary Elizabeth (the research calls it resolved): no record yet seen names her parents.
• Which James Reed. James Read's 1827 consent note proves he was Mary's father. Where he died is open: in Clay County about 1841 (the Clay reading, resting only on the Attride compilation's 1841 estate), or in Morgan County, Indiana, before his will was recorded on 6 January 1845 (the Morgan reading). The Reed addendum leans to the Morgan reading, and the files record his death that way, but it is not proven. The children named in the Morgan County will and land records (Elisha, John or James, Naaman) are his only under that reading; Samuel and William, from the 1841 Clay estate, only under the other.
• James > Hugh Reed Sr. (possible): the Attride compilation alone. A James named at the 1786 estate sale is not shown to be a son, and the 1783 Rowan grant needs a James born by about 1762, older than ours.
• Hugh > William Read (possible): Heinegg lists James and Stephen Reed of Ashe County among the "other members of the Reed family" without parents. No generation between is traced.
• Mary's mother. James's wife was born about 1770-80 and was counted white in 1830. Her given name, Susannah, comes from a Morgan County land transfer reported by JoEllen Reed and holds only under the Morgan reading. The Hollingsworth maiden name in online trees is unsupported.

Where the line ends

The Collins side stops at Thomas Collins. Nothing is known of his parents, and the FamilySearch graft onto a Thomas Collins of Hampshire, England, is rejected.

The Reed side walks up from Mary through her father. It reaches James and then Hugh Reed Sr., whom only the Attride compilation names as James's father. William Read, whom Heinegg treats as the founder of the free colored Reed family, has a scope of his own because no parent-child links connect him to Hugh or James; he is the line's possible root, not a proven ancestor. Stephen Reed Sr. of Ashe County (b. c. 1748), a probable older generation of the same family whose relationship to James is unknown, is outside the scope; his file and his children's are there for when that question is answered.

Mary Reed's brothers and sisters

Only Mary is proven James's child. Elizabeth (m. Hiram Collins 1829) and Stephen (m. Nancy Powell the same day as Mary's wedding) are probable; Randolph, Benjamin, Tilford and Sarah Reid (Bradley Collins's partner) possible; Naaman, Elisha and John [or James] are his under the Morgan reading, Samuel and William under the Clay reading. Patsy Reed (m. James Hollinsworth 1822), once listed as a sister, is more likely a cousin, a daughter of Stephen Reed Jr.

Open questions

• Meredith's father: a Montgomery County tithable list of the late 1770s showing a teenage Meredith in someone's household would settle it.
• The wives of Thomas and of Meredith's father; whether a daughter of Moses Riddle was Meredith's mother.
• Meredith's first wife, mother of Bradley.
• Eula Conley's DAR application and its 25 supporting documents.
• Jesse's and Mary's graves in Appanoose County, and the 1850 marriage record of Eli Bruner and Mary Elizabeth.
• Which James? The tests are ranked in the Reed addendum, section 12: the 1850 Morgan County census for his widow; JoEllen Reed's copies of the will, the land transfer naming Susannah, and any purchase deed; Deed Book J, p. 522 and James's purchase deed for the SW quarter of Section 17 (FamilySearch film 1468446, not online); the Morgan County probate order book, 1822-1847; and the 1841 Clay estate file.
• Is the will's second son John or James?
• Susannah's maiden name.
• Was James a son of Hugh Reed Sr., or of Stephen Reed Sr.? Stephen Sr's Ashe estate (c. 1812) and the 1802 James-to-Stephen deed may say.
• The generations between William Read and the Ashe County Reeds. A Y-DNA test of a male-line Reed descendant of James would help.