Hiram Collins

The full opening of the General Index to Marriages, Clay County Court. Jesse Collins and Mary Reed are the last entry in the left column, with the later note “of James” beside her name: the clerk’s cross-reference to her father’s consent. Across the gutter are Hiram Collins’s two licenses to Elizabeth Reed and Bradley Collins’s three marriages. The right-hand page alone is also in the Gallery, as “Clay County Court marriage register, the C entries.”

A page of the Clay County Court register of marriages, men’s names A to C in order of license: names, the date of the license, the date of the marriage where the certificate came back, and the file box of the loose papers. The Collinses of Jesse’s generation are here: Hiram’s two licenses to Elizabeth Reed (the first never returned, the second married 8 December 1829), Abraham’s to Christina Poulston, Bradley’s three marriages, William’s to Sytha Powell, Andrew’s and James’s. Jesse and Mary’s own marriage of 1827 is on the page before.

A water-damaged opening of the register, with each marriage’s minister. The last entry of 1829, in December, is “Hiram Collins & Elizabeth Read,” by J. Ambrose [?], who also married Jesse Collins and Mary Reed in 1827.

“November the 25 1827. Mr Abner Baker Sir ples to grant Jesse Collens lisens to marrey Mary Reed and oblige them. James Read.” Witnessed “Stephen Read” and “Hiram Collins.” It is in James Read’s own hand, and it is the only record that names Mary as his daughter. From Molata, chapter six.

Clay County, Kentucky, shaded, in the mountain counties, with Laurel, Knox, Leslie and Owsley around it. The Collins and Reed families were there in the 1820s, and Jesse Collins and Mary Reed married there in 1827. From Molata, chapter six.