"Portrait & Biographical Record of the Willamette Valley Oregon."  Chapman 
Publishing Company, 1903. p. 1126.
 
HON. JAMES L. COLLINS

     Prominent among the representative men of Polk county is Hon. James L.
Collins, known not alone as one whose name was among the first to be identified
with the American settlements in Oregon, but rather for his intimate relations
with the permanent history of our commonwealth. Beginning in pioneer days, in
the midst of undeveloped resource and a rude civilization, he gave himself
wholly to the western cause, faithful in the pursuit of duty, whether in camp or
field, as a soldier in defense of the settlers or a citizen in the material
upbuilding of the country ; through the changes of time and progression he has
advanced his own interests and those of his adopted state by lifting himself to
a position of exceptional prominence among the many who are entitled to the
esteem and admiration of the present generation. The interest which attaches to
the pioneers of Oregon is not inspired by curiosity, but rather by that
affection which centers about the lives and deeds of those who blazed the trail
for the westward march of progress. Before touching upon the life of Judge
Collins we will give a brief outline of the ancestry to which he owes those
characteristics which have enabled him to become a power among many hampering
conditions. His maternal grandfather was a descendant of Thomas Wyatt, a man
well known in the history of England through his opposition to the marriage of
Queen Mary to Philip of Spain, and who was beheaded by her orders for his
participation in the rebellion which occurred about 1554.  Sir. Henry Wyatt, the
father of Thomas Wyatt, was a member of the privy council of Henry the Eighth.
His maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Sea, was descended from the Duke of Argyll,
while his father's mother was Jane Eddings, the representative of an old
Virginia family. Smith Collins, the father of Judge Collins, was born in Orange
county, Va., in 1804, the son of George and the grandson of William, both of
whom were natives of the same location. The latter was an intimate friend of
General Washington and served under him in the Revolutionary war. He was a
Virginia planter and died in the Old Dominion. George Collins moved to
Montgomery county, Mo., and later by a division of this county he found himself
located in the new county of Warren, near Warrenton, where he owned a large
tract of land on Barracks creek, and was engaged extensively in the culture of
tobacco and corn. He served in the war of 1812, and died in Missouri in 1845.
     Smith Collins was a boy of ten years when the British burned the city of
Washington, and he heard the cannonading and saw the conflagration.  His home
remained in Virginia for many years, and at the age of eighteen he learned the
tanner's trade at Port Republic, that state. On the completion of his
apprenticeship he went to Fayetteville, N. C., where he worked as a journeyman
for a Mr. Prince, and later removed to Cheraw Hill, S. C., and became foreman
for H. G. Nelson. In 1827 he located in Missouri, where his father had
previously settled, both being pioneers in this state of the middle west. He
brought with him a little mare for which he was offered forty acres of land now
in the heart of the city of St. Louis, which was then only a little french
village with the greater part of the land about covered with black-jack. When
the Collins family left the state, nineteen years later, St. Louis had become an
important city of the south, with flourishing markets and, substantial business
houses. On his arrival in Missouri Mr. Collins became superintendent of the
Stevenson tannery in St. Charles county, where he remained until 1829, when he
opened a Lanyard and shop near his father's home on. Barracks creek. He was
married the same year and shortly afterward his father-in-law, Douglas Wyatt,
gave his daughter forty acres of land located on Chariton creek, where Mr.
Collins subsequently established a tannery and conducted the same in connection
with farming.
     In 1846 Mr. Collins outfitted for the trip across the plains, having
decided to become a pioneer of the northwest. Besides ten yoke of oxen he
brought with him valuable loose cattle and horses upon a trip made memorable by
innumerable hardships and dangers. They crossed the Kansas river, thence
followed the Republican fork, and the Platte river, by Ft. Laramie, and on to
the Black Hills. They were not molested by the Indians until they reached the
Humboldt valley, in Nevada, but from there on they encountered considerable
difficulties. One week was consumed in passing through the Umpqua canon, a
distance of twelve miles, as they were compelled to bridge over the rocks,
follow the streams, etc. Upon their arrival at the present site of Eugene City,
they found but one house, that having been built by Eugene Skinner, but with no
occupants. Here the subject of this sketch remained with the wagons and
exhausted stock during the winter, while the rest of the family proceeded on
pack-horses, to the settlements on the Luckiamute river, about sixty miles
further north.
     In the spring of 1847 Mr. Collins took up a donation claim located between
the Luckiamute and Soap creek, in Polk county, and entered at once upon the work
of reclaiming the land from its wilderness state. The stock which he had brought
with him to Oregon he turned upon the open range. By energy, perseverance and
management he acquired a large amount of property, in later years trading stock
for land in the southern part of Polk county, which he retained until the time
of his death. Mr. Collins had brought with him to Oregon several hundred
dollars' worth of leather, the first brought into the state, and on his claim he
established a small tannery which he conducted for several years. Mr. King, the
first settler of King's valley employed him to finish some leather which he had
previously tanned, but could not curry and finish.
     Mr. Collins was married in 1829 to Miss Eliza Emily Wyatt, who was born
near Mount Sterling, Ky., in 1812. She was a daughter of Douglas Wyatt, a native
of Kentucky and pioneer of Warren county, Mo.  Twelve children were born to Mr.
and Mrs. Collins, namely : Jane E., who became the wife of M. M. Neeley, and
died in Oregon ; James Layton, the subject of this review; Francis M., of Dallas
; George Smith, who was killed at the age of six years while crossing the plains
; Eliza Melvina, of Dallas, the widow of William P. Shaw ; Douglas Wyatt, of
Klickitat county, Wash.; William Wallace, of Polk county ; David Crockett, who
was drowned in Forest creek in 1875; Alexander H., of Dallas ; Emily A., who
became the wife of Richard Wells, and died in Polk county; Mary I., the wife of
Elvin Carter of Klickitat county, Wash. ; and A. S., of Prineville, Ore. The
eight children first mentioned were born in Missouri and accompanied their
parents to Oregon, while the last four were born in Polk county. Mr. Collins
died in 1872.
     James Layton Collins was born in Warren county, Mo., May 9, 1833, and
shortly before his thirteenth birthday he was en route for Oregon, a member of
the first company that ever came by way of the Klamath lakes, and across the
Siskiyou, Umpqua and Calapooia mountains into the Willamette valley. He was
often detailed to drive the foremost team that broke down the thick sage brush
upon the trackless waste and was thus in the van of danger and difficulty
throughout the greater part of the trip. On October 10, the party arrived in the
Willamette valley at the present site of Eugene City. There a great many of the
hardships and perils of pioneer life fell upon the shoulders of Judge Collins,
then a mere lad, the necessity of providing game in sufficient quantity for the
support of himself and two sick companions, enforcing him to shoulder his gun,
and with its breech breaking the ice in the sloughs and streams, wade through
them in order to reach good hunting grounds on the other shore. In the spring of
the following year he settled with, his parents in Polk county where he helped
to erect and improve their pioneer home. For several years he remained at home,
assisting in the general work of the farm. During this period he followed out
his natural inclinations and began to devote every spare moment to study ; not
being able to procure lights, he pursued his studies by the glow of the
pitchwood fire in the rude fireplace, the foundation for knowledge having been
laid in the subscription schools of his native state. After a few years, when
the family could manage to get along without his assistance, he became a student
in the old Oregon Institution at Salem, then conducted by Professor Hoyt, and
which has since become Willamette University. Being under the necessity of
working for his maintenance while attending school, he was first employed by
Father Waller. Professor Hoyt soon recognized the intellectual qualities of the
ambitious lad, and employed him to cut wood and to work in the campus garden,
for these services paying him twenty-five cents per hour. He occupied a room in
the upper story of the college building, and for two years put in many hours of
hard labor daily, and soon became proficient in Greek and other branches.
     In 1853 Judge Collins went to the mines of northern California, where he
remained until the fall of 1855, when he returned to Oregon. The legislature
being in session,  he secured a position as reporter for the Democrat-Standard,
and continued as such until the close of the session, during which the capital
was removed from Corvallis to Salem. A few days before the adjournment of the
legislature Capt. B. F. Burch organized Company B of the recruiting battalion of
the first regiment of Oregon Mounted Volunteers, for service in the Yakima
Indian war. Judge Collins at once enlisted, and after the adjournment of the
assembly he joined the troops in the field on the Columbia river and
participated in the hardships and perils which followed. He was with Col. Thomas
R. Cornelius throughout his famous "horse-meat campaign," when the volunteers
pursued the Indians for two months, being often reduced to the necessity of
subsisting upon the horses captured from or abandoned by the Indians in their
flight. He also took an active and honorable part in the battle of the Simcoe,
which won for him the respect of his officers and the confidence and esteem of
all his comrades in arms.
     After the close of hostilities Judge Collins returned to Polk county and
engaged in teaching school, at the same time continuing his studies. He had
previously studied law under Hon. B. F. Harding and Hon. L. F. Grover while a
resident of Salem, and in 1859 he made application for admission to the bar.
Judge Wilson, then District Attorney, wrote the motion for his admission, a
committee was appointed, consisting of Judges J. G. Wilson, George H. Williams
and Ben Hayden, to examine him, and he was admitted November 19, of the same
year. During the session of 1864 and the special session of 1865 he was chief
clerk of the house of representatives. In 1869 he was appointed by Gov. Geo. L.
Woods county judge of Polk county, and the same year was appointed by Judge
Deady to the office of United States commissioner, which he has held up to the
present time. He has served as deputy prosecuting attorney for several years and
has been attorney for the state in managing the school fund of Polk county for
the past fifteen years. In politics the judge is a Republican, though he had
been a Democrat until the breaking out of the Civil war. At that time he
abandoned that party and as a member of the state convention at Eugene City
aided in organizing the Republican party for its first effective campaign in
Oregon. He has also served as chairman of the county central committee, and was
a member of the state central committee and has served as a member of the Dallas
city council.  As county superintendent of schools for two years he was active
in the promotion of educational matters, being instrumental in the organization
of Dallas College, and takes great interest in all movements pertaining to the
general welfare of the community. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church and served as trustee.
     The marriage of Judge Collins occurred in Polk county in 1861, Miss Mary
Whiteaker becoming his wife. She was born in De Kalb county, Ill., in 1846, the
daughter of Benjamin Whiteaker, who was one of the pioneers of Polk county in
1847, and a relative of John Whiteaker, the first governor of Oregon. Mrs.
Collins died in 1864, leaving one daughter, Nellie, who is a graduate of La
Creole Academy, the state normal school at Monmouth, and the New York state
normal college at Oswego, N. Y. She is now critic in the state normal school at
Madison, S. D., which position she has occupied for the past ten years. On
January 1, 1867, Judge Collins married for his second wife Miss Mary E. Kimes, a
native of De Kalb county, Mo., and a daughter of Lewis Ray Kimes, who started
with his family for Oregon in 1852 and was drowned while attempting to cross the
Missouri river. His widow continued her journey to Oregon, locating in Yamhill
county, where was born her son, Lewis Ray Kimes, now a prominent farmer of Polk
county. To Judge and Mrs. Collins were born ten children, namely : Ray Smith,
deceased ; Edgar Layton, of Ka-lama, Wash.; Mary, wife of Prof. E. E. Watts, of
Washington county, Ore. ; Ednelle, a teacher in the public schools of Dallas ;
Ben David, deceased ; Ora ; Frank Wyatt, a mechanical engineer in the, Union
Iron Works of San Francisco; Louise ; James Dean; and Margaret, deceased.
     In 1859 Judge Collins opened an office in Independence, but since 1860 has
been continuously engaged in the practice of law in Dallas. By his
contemporaries he is regarded as an able lawyer, a safe counselor, a strong
pleader, well grounded in the principles of his chosen profession, and equipped
with unexcelled ability to apply them correctly to the case in hand. A young
attorney once cast reflections upon the integrity of Judge Collins. Governor
Gibbs replied : " He is a man who may safely be trusted with uncounted gold." An
attempt was once made to throw out of court a case in which Judge Collins was
the attorney. Judge Boise, who presided, said : " Judge Collins has practiced
before me, and has uniformly appeared with the best papers ever presented in my
court." The motion was overruled.
     This brief outline of the life record of Judge Collins illustrates what
careful and thorough preparation, determination and perseverance, supplemented
by a righteous ambition to attain a position of responsibility and honor, will
accomplish. Many a young man of the present generation, or of generations yet to
come, doubtless will find in the story of his life much that will prove an
incentive to earnest and conscientious effort, and without these qualifications
no man may hope to make a success of his elected vocation, regardless of the
extent of his mental attainments.


     
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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in September 2007 by Diana Smith.
Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned
above.