Person:William Collins (72)

He was a dry goods merchant, and for about 35 years was connected with the mercantile interests of Hartford, first with the firm his father founded as A.M. Collins & Sons, and later as Collins Brothers & Co. This firm was among the most prudent and reliable in New England, and so much confidence was reposed in it that, after the Civil War broke out, when banks and bankers were looked upon with suspicion, the house of Collins Brothers & Co. was offered large sums of money, without security, by its correspondents.

Collins was for many years a director of the City Gas Light Co., also in the Merchants Insurance Company, a member of the managing board of the Retreat, and was for a long time connected with the Society of Savings. The Park was one of his favorite projects, to which, as chairman of the Park Commissioners for a number of years, he gave his watchful attention and Hartford is largely indebted to his refined tastes and persevering industry for the plans and laying out of this ornament to the city. He was one of the first projectors of the Hartford & Wethersfield Horse railroad. The Cedar Hill cemetery was another enterprise to which he felt deep interest, and the West End improvements were more due to him been to any other citizen.

He was one of the foremost in establishing the Asylum Hill Congregational Church. In Collins' death, the city lost one of its most enterprising and public-spirited citizens. He was known to be unostentatious and the public at large could not know him as he was known and respected by businessmen who were constantly brought in contact with him. He was modest in all things, purely unselfish in all. His opinions were decided and seldom at fault. He delighted in liberal works, in encouraging all deserving charities, and no individual case which called for assistance, and was known to be worthy, was ever turned off unrelieved.

(largely written by his daughter, Frances Collins Palmer)

References

• Collens, Clarence Lyman. Collins Memorial (Hartford, CT 1959)
• Dunham, Ethel Collins, Samuel G. and Alice Collins Dunham, their descendants and antecedents (Washington, DC 1955)

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Collens, Clarence Lyman. Collins Memorial. (Hartford, CT: (self published), 1959)
   p. 170.
2. ↑ Cedar Hill Cemetery.