Collins-Reed Master Family Tree

Master reference for the book. Structure comes only from line breaks and indentation, so it survives any font, page width, or paste.

Last revised: 27 September 2026, for the Reed findings in Reed_Family_Investigation_Addendum.md: Part Two (James Reed, his parents and his children), the line at a glance, and Hiram Collins's 1840 county in Part One. The book text has not yet been checked against these changes. Previous revision: 23 September 2026, to match the book (Molata, 1st ed., v1.3 rewrite) and its source audit; the reasoning behind those changes is in the "READ THIS FIRST" block at the top of meredith_collins_research.md and Meredith_Collins_Origin_Line_Addendum.md.

How each entry reads

• Line 1: Name (birth year - death year). Spine ancestors are in bold.
• Line 2: b. date, place; d. date, place
• Line 3: m. date, place, spouse
• Line 4: Note: what they are remembered for
• Siblings of spine ancestors get a single line.

Abbreviations: b. born; d. died; m. married; bur. buried; c. about; bef. before; aft. after; Co county. [?] marks an unproven link or claim. [or X] names the alternative where the line has an open fork. [Clay reading] and [Morgan reading] mark entries that hold only if Mary's father is, respectively, the James Reed who died in Clay Co, Kentucky, c. 1841, or the James Reed who died in Morgan Co, Indiana, bef. 1845 (see James Reed in Part Two).

The line at a glance Thomas Collins > John Collins [or Samuel] > Meredith Collins > Jesse Collins = Mary Reed < James Reed < Hugh Reed Sr. [?] < ... < William Read [?] Jesse and Mary > Mary Elizabeth Collins = Eli Bruner > Mariah Emma Bruner = John Marshall Clifford > Jessie Clifford = Richard Blackmer Holbrook Jr. > Richard Clifford Holbrook = Lucille McMillan > Frances Fairchild Holbrook

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Part One: The Collins Line

• Thomas Collins (c. 1700 - c. 1770)
  • b. c. 1700, probably Virginia; d. c. 1770, probably Orange Co, North Carolina [?]
  • m. name unknown. Not a daughter of Moses Riddle, who was born c. 1715-25 and too young to be her father; the Riddle link belongs a generation down (see Part Four)
  • Note: Earliest proven ancestor. Presented in Louisa Co, Virginia, in 1745 for failing to list a tithable, most likely his wife; sold 184 acres on Turkey Run, 1747; taxed as "Molata" in Orange Co, North Carolina, 1755; granted 700 acres on Dial's Creek of the Flat River, 13 Oct 1761 (Gv579).
  • Samuel Collins (c. 1724 - aft. 1787), the other candidate for Meredith's father: b. c. 1724, Virginia; d. aft. 1787, probably Wilkes Co, North Carolina; presented with Thomas in Louisa Co, 1745, and sued for money and deer skins, 1746; taxed "Molata," 1755; on the New River by 1771; a "Samuel Collens" took the oath of allegiance with a John Collins and the Riddles as one of Capt. John Cox's men, fall 1777 (Kegley, Militia, p. 51); Heinegg places most of the New River Collins men among his descendants
  • George Collins (c. 1728 - ?)
  • Thomas Collins Jr. (c. 1734 - ?), counted "other free" in Ashe Co, North Carolina, 1800
  • John Collins (c. 1736 - ?) [or his brother Samuel: Meredith's father is one of the two, and the book leans to John]
    • b. c. 1736 [estimate]; d. unknown
    • m. name unknown; possibly a daughter of Moses Riddle, b. c. 1740 [?]
    • Note: Taxed "Molata" with Thomas and Samuel, 1755; four tithes in Botetourt Co, 1771, the largest Collins household; probably the John Collins farming on Peach Bottom Creek of the New River by 1767 [?]; the early New River researchers called Meredith "probably son of John Collins Sr." and Lewis "son of John"; a "Jno. Collens" took the oath of allegiance with Capt. Cox's company, fall 1777 (Kegley p. 51)
    • Meredith Collins (c. 1760 - 1841)
      • b. c. 1760, Virginia; d. 1841, Pike Co, Kentucky
      • m. (1) name unknown, c. 1782-85; (2) Polly (Margaret?) Holloway, c. 1799 (b. c. 1780, Virginia; d. bef. 1840, probably c. 1812); later companion Milly Johnson
      • Note: Enlisted at 16 in 1776, per the family record (place unrecorded); on Capt. James McDaniel's company list as "Mendaby Collens," next to Lewis, the page the DAR cites (Kegley, Militia, p. 23); among the men of McDaniel's company who had refused a tour, court martial of 23 Apr 1783; DAR Patriot A024535; on the Russell Co, Virginia, tax rolls 1799-1809; counted white in 1810 (Floyd Co, Kentucky), in the colored and slave columns in 1820, white again in 1830; declared a "poor man" by Pike Co in 1838; named on the DAR's 1929 bronze plaque at the Pike Co courthouse. The War of 1812 card for a Meredith Collins in a Tennessee regiment belongs to a namesake.
      • Bradley Collins (1787 - aft. 1850), son of the first wife, b. North Carolina; m. at least four times: Jane Ray 1817 [Conley list only; county uncertain], and in Clay Co, Kentucky, Catherine Barney 1831, Betsy Griffin 1833, and Elizabeth Lunsford 1836; a daughter, Nancy (c. 1822), with Sarah Reid; went west in 1839, by flatboat per Eula Conley; Chariton Co, Missouri, 1840; Appanoose Co, Iowa, from 1844; in son Andrew's household there, counted white, 29 Nov 1850 [the DAR's Bradley-line papers wrongly name Polly Holloway as his mother; some researchers make Jesse his son, which the dates rule out]
      • A daughter by the first wife [?], probably the female aged 16-25 in the 1810 household
      • Archibald Collins (c. 1800 - ?)
      • James Collins (c. 1804? - ?), m. Martha Ann Cotton, July 1839, Clay Co, Kentucky [?]
      • Jesse Collins (c. 1804 - 1847): continues in Part Three
      • Hiram Collins (c. 1804-06 - ?), witnessed Jesse's consent note, 1827; m. Elizabeth Reed 8 Dec 1829, Clay Co, Kentucky, after a first license of 1 Dec 1828 lapsed; he and his wife entered in the slave columns in 1830, their small son in the white column; in 1840 a free colored household in Morgan Co, Indiana, on the census page after James Reed's (earlier notes put this entry in Montgomery Co, very likely a misreading) [probable full brother of Jesse]
      • William Collins (1806 - 1896), b. 13 Apr 1806, Russell Co, Virginia; d. 30 Mar 1896, Craigsville, West Virginia; m. (2) Mary A. "Molly" Hatfield 25 Nov 1860
      • Edward "Ned" Collins (c. 1804 - ?), b. North Carolina; farmed in Patrick Co, Virginia, 1840 and 1850; the "half Indian" son of the family legend [?]
      • John W. Collins and Reuben Collins, named as sons in the Conley family record [?]
      • A son by Milly Johnson (c. 1818 - ?), bound out by the Pike Co court, June 1829
    • Kinsmen of Meredith's generation, brothers or cousins (exact parents unsorted): George, David, Lewis (b. 1754, "son of John"; listed next to Meredith on McDaniel's company; pension S21142: living in South Carolina 1776-78, fought at Eutaw Springs 1781, living in Grainger Co, Tennessee, 1834), Elisha (refused the Oath of Allegiance as a man of Cox's company, fall 1777; Kegley p. 50), Ambrose, Vardy (patriarch of Newman's Ridge, Tennessee; his male line tests European, R1a1), Griffin (b. c. 1773)

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Part Two: The Reed Line

• William Read (c. 1673 - aft. 1715) [?]
  • b. c. 1673, Charles City Co, Virginia; d. unknown
  • m. Mary, surname unknown [?], if he is the William Read of the 1729 sale
  • Note: Born free to a white servant woman in Robert Jones's household, his father unrecorded; won his freedom and Jones's legacy in court, 3 September 1694; taxed as "Wm Read a Malatta" in Surry Co, 1699; awarded 1,285 pounds of tobacco against William Edwards, 1715. Possibly the William Read who with his wife Mary sold 100 acres on Sappony Creek in 1729 (Surry DW&c 8:22) [?]. Heinegg treats him as the founder of the free colored Reed family, but lists James and Stephen Reed of Ashe Co only as "other members of the Reed family" and does not trace their parents, so the link to James is unproven [?].
  • (several generations not yet traced)
    • Hugh Reed Sr. (? - bef. 1787) [?]
      • b. unknown; d. bef. the end of 1786, Rowan Co, North Carolina
      • m. unknown
      • Note: His 187-acre estate on Second Creek was sold after his death. Named as James's father only in the Attride compilation. A James Reed named at the estate sale is not thereby shown to be his son, and James's census ages (born c. 1766-75) are young for the James Reed of the 1783 Rowan grant, so the Rowan records may belong to another James [?].
      • James Reed (c. 1766-75 - c. 1841 [or bef. 1845])
        • b. c. 1766-75 (by his census ages), probably North Carolina; d. c. 1841, Clay Co, Kentucky [or bef. 6 Jan 1845, Morgan Co, Indiana, the date his will was recorded there; bur. Reed's Chapel Cemetery, Martinsville]
        • m. name unknown [or Susannah, if he is the Morgan Co James] (b. c. 1770-80; the one person in the household counted white in 1830; under the Clay reading, the "Mrs. Reid" who bought part of his estate at its sale in 1841; under the Morgan reading, alive in Morgan Co in 1846); her maiden name is unknown, and the Hollingsworth name in online trees is unsupported
        • Note: Counted among the free people of color in Ashe Co, North Carolina, in 1800; white in 1810; a free colored man 45 or over in Clay Co, Kentucky, in 1820; in 1830 entered in the slave column himself (aged 55-100), with four young men of his household also in the slave columns, one free colored man aged 24-36, and his wife counted white; wrote the 25 Nov 1827 consent note for his daughter Mary's marriage. The 1783 state grant of 130 acres on Dutchmans Creek, Rowan Co, may belong to another James [?]. Which James Reed died where is open. The Clay reading rests on an 1841 estate in Clay Co known only from the Attride compilation. The Morgan reading, which the Reed addendum leans to: moved to Morgan Co, Indiana, in 1831; bought the SW quarter of Section 17, T11N R1E, near Martinsville; signed a will on 19 Jul 1836 leaving his home farm to his sons Elisha and John [or James], with land already given to "other sons."
        • Sarah Reed (c. 1795-1805 - bef. 1830), partner of Bradley Collins bef. 1822, mother of Nancy Williams [?]
        • Mary Reed (1804 - c. 1852): continues in Part Three
        • Benjamin Reed (c. 1808 - ?), in Iowa by about 1838 (his own round figure in 1856) and certainly by 1840, two pages from Tilford in the territorial census; settled Wells Twp, Appanoose Co [possible son]
        • Tilford Reed (c. 1811 - ?), the family's earliest scout west, in Iowa by about 1836, when his son Harman was born there; "Tifford" Reed, Van Buren, in the 1840 census of Iowa Territory; the fourteen years' residence he gave in 1856 was a round figure [possible son]
        • Naaman Reed (1813 - 1883), b. 8 May 1813, Clay Co, Kentucky; d. Jan 1883, Martinsville, Indiana; called "son of James and Susannah" in a Morgan Co land record; m. (1) Delilah Reed 13 Aug 1832, (2) Salma Lambert 31 Mar 1877, Morgan Co [Morgan reading]
        • Stephen Reed, m. Nancy Powell 13 Dec 1827, Clay Co, Kentucky, the same day as Mary's wedding; witnessed Mary's consent note [probable son]
        • Elizabeth Reed, m. Hiram Collins 8 Dec 1829, Clay Co, Kentucky; she and Hiram were counted near James in 1830 (Clay Co) and 1840 (Morgan Co, Indiana) [probable daughter]
        • Randolph Reed, m. Rhodey Hollinsworth 1825, Clay Co, Kentucky; free colored in Clay Co in 1830; in Morgan Co, Indiana, by 1834 (federal land patent) and free colored there in 1840 [possible son]
        • Elisha Reed, named as a son in the 1836 will; m. Delilah Bowmire 1 Aug 1839 and Esther Reed (license 27 Dec 1842), Morgan Co, Indiana [Morgan reading]
        • John Reed [or James Reed], named with Elisha in the 1836 will; the copies of the will disagree on the name [Morgan reading]
        • William Reed, m. Lydia Langdon 1830 [?]; named in the 1841 Clay estate division [Clay reading]
        • Samuel Reed, named in the 1841 Clay estate division [Clay reading]
        • Not his: Patsy Reed (m. James Hollinsworth 1822, Clay Co), listed here before 27 Sep 2026, is more likely a daughter of Stephen Reed Jr.

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Part Three: The Joined Line

• Jesse Collins (c. 1804 - 1847) and Mary Reed (1804 - c. 1852)
  • Jesse: b. c. 1804, Virginia (probably Russell Co), son of Meredith and Polly Holloway; d. 1847, probably Appanoose Co, Iowa
  • Mary: b. 1804, Virginia; d. c. 1852 (bef. 1856), Appanoose Co, Iowa
  • m. 13 Dec 1827, Clay Co, Kentucky (double wedding with Stephen Reed and Nancy Powell)
  • Note: Moved through Morgan Co, Indiana (1830), Illinois, and St. Louis Co, Missouri (1840), as tenant farmers before reaching Appanoose; widowed Mary and all her children were marked "M" for mulatto in 1850, the only household so marked in the family's Iowa network.
  • Mary Elizabeth "Polly" Collins (1827 - 1887)
    • b. 30 Jan 1827, Kentucky (probably Clay Co), ten and a half months before her parents' wedding; d. 19 May 1887, Siloam Springs, Benton Co, Arkansas
    • m. 1850, Appanoose Co, Iowa, Eli Woodruff Bruner (b. 2 Mar 1827, Indiana; d. 27 July 1879, Colorado City, Colorado, of rheumatic fever; bur. Evergreen Cemetery, Colorado Springs, Potters Field, with Masonic honors)
    • Note: The woman in the family photograph; placed out as household help as a girl; wife of a blacksmith, mother of eleven, head of her own household as a widow.
    • David Bruner (1851 - 1857), b. 17 Jul 1851, Appanoose Co, Iowa [?]; d. 12 Feb 1857
    • Elizabeth Ellen Bruner (c. 1853 - 1905), b. c. 1853, Indiana (age 7 in the 1860 census); d. 12 Feb 1905, Delta, Colorado
    • Mariah Emma Bruner (1853 - 1933)
      • b. 30 Oct 1853, Martin Co, Indiana; d. 4 Dec 1933, Wheatland, Yuba Co, California
      • m. (1) c. 1872-73, place unknown, John Marshall Clifford (b. 1844, probably Livingston Co, Missouri; d. 1879, Iowa); (2) 6 Feb 1881, Benton Co, Arkansas, John Lewis Davis (1841 - 1914); (3) a Mr. Dunlap, bef. 1910
      • Note: Widowed at 25 with three small children; recorded as housekeeper at the silver camp of Gothic, Colorado, 1880, enumerated alongside her brother Heck ("E. G."), the blacksmith; in Jessie's household in Kitsap Co, Washington, 1910, and Grays Harbor Co, 1920; seated at the center of the Washington family photograph, c. 1930-32; spent her last years in Jessie's town of Wheatland, California.
      • Orlando Hines "Ora" Clifford (1873 - 1954), b. 20 Oct 1873, Siloam Springs, Arkansas; d. 25 Feb 1954, Phoenix, Arizona; m. Lela; father of Stanley, Clyde, and Lucille Clifford Bailey
      • Eli Woodrie Clifford (1875 - 1947), b. 25 Mar 1875, Des Moines, Iowa; d. 31 May 1947, Bothell, Washington; m. Gertrude "Gertie"
      • Jessie Lorene Clifford (1876 - 1948)
        • b. 6 May 1876, Siloam Springs, Benton Co, Arkansas; d. 29 Aug 1948, Yuba Co, California
        • m. (1) 28 Sep 1900, Seattle, Washington, Captain Richard Blackmer Holbrook Jr. (b. 16 Sep 1872, San de Fuca, Whidbey Island, Washington; d. 23 Sep 1923, Bismarck, Burleigh Co, North Dakota, cause unknown); (2) Thomas Harris Absolom (b. 1 Apr 1867, Wolfscastle, Pembrokeshire, Wales; d. 12 Mar 1953, Contra Costa Co, California)
        • Note: With her husband, sons, and mother in Kitsap Co, Washington, 1910; headed her own household in Grays Harbor Co, Washington, in 1920, recorded as married, with her sons, her mother, and roomers, while her husband worked away; living with Thomas Absolom in Wheatland, California, by 1940, where her mother spent her last years.
        • Richard Clifford Holbrook (1902 - 1955)
          • b. 12 Jul 1902, Seattle, King Co, Washington; d. 30 Nov 1955, Hot Springs, Garland Co, Arkansas
          • m. May 1927, San Jose, Santa Clara Co, California (reported 15 May 1927), Lucille M. McMillan (b. 17 Sep 1905, Tacoma, Pierce Co, Washington; d. 1 Aug 1996, Lacey, Thurston Co, Washington)
          • Note: Builder and diver. Associate engineer with the U.S. Navy, a civilian post, in the 1940 census; at Pearl Harbor by 1941 and, by the family's memory, diving in the harbor after the attack; a Seabee lieutenant by the family's account, remembered on Midway and later on Guam; on Guam 1949-51, where the Navy's Fena dam, the likeliest candidate for the "first dam on Guam" the family credits him with, was completed in 1951; left Guam in December 1951 for the Naval Ammunition Depot at Shumaker, Arkansas; built dams across the United States between jobs overseas.
          • Frances Fairchild Holbrook (1931 - living)
            • b. 26 Jul 1931, Tacoma, Washington
            • m. (1) 26 Mar 1955, Seattle, Washington, Richard Everett "Dick" Ellingwood Jr.; (2) Jack Brewer
            • Note: "Grandmommie." At Pearl Harbor with her family at the time of the 1941 attack; on Guam 1949-51, a file clerk and typist in the Navy yard in 1950; the family's Native ancestry story came down through her.
            • John Ellingwood (b. c. 1961, Spokane, Washington [?]), m. 1987, Seattle, Lynn Margaret [add the rest of the living generations as desired]
          • Harriet L. Holbrook (1941/42 - ?), b. Honolulu, Hawaii (age 8 on the April 1950 manifest), named for her great-grandmother Harriet Low Holbrook
        • Daniel Philip "Phil" Holbrook (c. 1904 - ?), b. St. John, Washington; m. Alice Catherine Duffy 13 Apr 1929, San Francisco; seafaring
      • Elizabeth Jane Davis (1883 - 1960), b. 1 Feb 1883, Siloam Springs, Arkansas; d. 1960, Kirkland, Washington; m. Myers
      • Stepchildren from the Davis marriage: Sigel Charles Davis and Pluma Davis
    • Christopher Columbus Bruner (c. 1855 - 1927), b. c. 1855, Indiana (age 5 in 1860, 15 in 1870); d. 25 Feb 1927, De Beque, Mesa Co, Colorado
    • Olive Marie Bruner (c. 1857 - 1917), b. c. 1857, Indiana (age 13 in 1870); d. 1917, Edmonds, Washington
    • Albert Woodruff Bruner (1857 - 1935), b. 17 May 1857, Illinois; d. 29 Nov 1935, Wenatchee, Washington
    • Eli Hickman "Heck" Bruner (1859 - 1899), b. 13 Feb 1859, Missouri; d. 21 Jun 1899, drowned crossing the Grand River near Spavinaw, Indian Territory; blacksmith at Gothic, Colorado, 1880 (recorded "E. G."); later a Deputy U.S. Marshal for Judge Isaac Parker's court in Indian Territory, a member of the 1892 posse that killed Ned Christie, and remembered in legend for "Bruner's Graveyard" near Tahlequah
    • James Finlay Bruner (1860 - 1942), b. 18 Nov 1860, Mercer Co, Missouri; d. 23 Oct 1942, Wenatchee, Washington
    • Mary Elizabeth Bruner (1862 - 1862), b. 29 Oct 1862; d. 7 Nov 1862, aged nine days
    • Georgia Ann Bruner (1869 - 1901), b. 8 Feb 1869, Missouri; d. 30 Jul 1901, Seattle, Washington
  • Delilah Susan Collins (1828 - 1899), b. 15 Oct 1828, Kentucky; d. 24 Dec 1899, Sidney, Missouri; m. George Harman 1851, Schuyler Co, Missouri
  • Matilda Collins (1830 - 1918), b. 10 May 1830, Morgan Co, Indiana; d. 9 Jan 1918, Kirksville, Missouri
  • Reuben Collins (c. 1834 - ?), b. Indiana; ran the family farm at 16 after his father's death
  • Lloyd Collins (c. 1836 - ?), b. Indiana; m. Mary Lambert; in Vernon Co, Missouri, by 1880; father of Joseph Sia Collins (1875 - 1970, Yakima, Washington)
  • Kalaska Collins (c. 1838 - ?), b. Morgan Co, Illinois; m. Margaret King 24 Aug 1862, Schuyler Co, Missouri (double wedding); Co. E, 118th Illinois Infantry; survived the war
  • Spencer Collins (c. 1840-42 - 1864), b. Missouri; with the Hendon household in Wells Twp, Appanoose Co, 1856; Co. H, 46th Missouri Infantry, enlisted Springfield 17 Aug 1864 (the card's age of 44 is a slip for 24); killed in action 3 Nov 1864, Vera Cruz, Douglas Co, Missouri; bur. Parsons Cemetery, Ozark Co; no later record of him, and he may have joined distant Collins kin in that region [?]

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Part Four: Parents of Those Who Married In

• Moses Riddle and his wife Mary: taxed as mulattoes (as "Ridley"), Orange Co, North Carolina, 1755; Moses a chain carrier on John Brown's 1761 survey over the community's improvements; recorded "an Indian," Pittsylvania Co, Virginia, 1767; Moses b. c. 1715-25. Very likely the parents of John Riddle (b. c. 1750; pension S9069) and William Riddle, who took the oath of allegiance together as men of Capt. John Cox's company in the fall of 1777, John by his mark (Kegley, Militia, p. 51). Possible parents of the wife of one of Thomas Collins's younger sons, and so possibly of Meredith's mother [?]. Online trees make Moses a son of Margaret Ridley and Edward Buss; the court records behind that haven't been found [?]
• Henry Hickman Bruner (c. 1806 Kentucky - 1874) and Sarah Ann Bridges (c. 1804 Kentucky - 1873), m. 1824, Lawrence Co, Indiana: parents of Eli Bruner; Hickman a farmer and later wagon maker. Hickman's father Adam Peter Bruner Sr. (1763 - 1846) is said to have served as a private in the Revolution [service not yet sourced].
• Orlando H. Clifford (b. c. 1795, Vermont), a trader and later hotel keeper in Nebraska City, and Delila (b. c. 1812, Ohio): parents of John Marshall Clifford
• Captain Richard Blackmer Holbrook Sr. (1830 - 1898, bur. Coupeville, Washington) and Harriet Low (b. Maine), m. 24 Dec 1860, Steilacoom, Washington: parents of Richard Jr.; Whidbey Island pioneers (he arrived in 1852; their 1874 house at San de Fuca still stands in the Ebey's Landing reserve). Richard Jr.'s sister Mollie Frances Holbrook Pfeiffer (b. 4 Dec 1870, Coupeville) compiled the Holbrook-Low family history.