John Collins

One of the two candidates for Meredith Collins’s father, and the one the book Molata leans to. Taxed in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1755 as a “Molata” on one Black tithe. Probably the John Collins farming on Peach Bottom Creek of the New River by 1767 [?]. In 1771 his household in Botetourt County, Virginia, had four tithes, the largest of the Collins households; on the 1773 delinquent list marked “Indian Lands.” “Jno. Collens” took the oath of allegiance with Capt. John Cox’s company in the fall of 1777, beside “Samuel Collens” and William and John Riddle. On the 1782 Montgomery County tax list.

The early New River researchers called Meredith “probably son of John Collins Sr.” and Lewis Collins (b. 1754) “son of John”; Lewis stands beside Meredith on McDaniel’s company list. Grayson County tax records suggest Lewis and James Collins were sons of the Peach Bottom Creek John.

His wife is unknown. She may have been a daughter of Moses Riddle, born about 1740, who would be the right age [?].

Open questions

• One John or two? A John Collins held land on the Rocky Branch of the Flat River by 1751, and the 1771 Botetourt John had three other tithes (males over 16), both hard to fit a man born about 1736. There may have been an elder John (possibly the John Collins among the men the Orange County, Virginia, court called Indians in January 1742/43) as well as Thomas’s son John. This file follows the master tree, which treats them as one man.
• Was his wife a daughter of Moses Riddle?