Andrew Gordon Collins
Andrew Gordon Collins, a farmer of Cedarville township, former president of the school board of that township, an elder in the United Presbyterian church at Clifton and the proprietor of a farm of nearly two hundred and thirty acres on rural mail route No. 2 out of Cedarville, was born on the farm on which he is now living and has lived there all his life, excepting nine years that were spent in Xenia. He was born on August 12, 1865, son and only child of James Wallace and Mary J. (Gordon) Collins, the latter of whom was born in York county, Pennsylvania, in 1830 and died at her home in this county in 1888. She was a daughter of Andrew and Janet (Wallace) Gordon, whose last days were spent in York county, Pennsylvania. Andrew Gordon was born in the north of Ireland, of Scottish descent and the only child of his parents. His father died and he later came to this country with a view to making a home here for his mother, but before he could complete his plans to this end he received word from the old country that his mother was dead. He continued his efforts to get along in this country and in time became a well-to-do farmer in York county, Pennsylvania, where he married and reared his family. He and his wife were Presbyterians and were the parents of five children, those besides Mrs. Mary J. Collins having been Elizabeth G. Collins, David (deceased), Eleanor G. Wilson, and Janet Wallace.
The late James Wallace Collins was born on a farm in Cedarville township on February 16, 1832, a son of William and Mary (Galloway) Collins, members of two of the oldest families in this county, as will be noted by further references in this work to the Collinses and the Gallowavs, who had settled along the banks of the river north of where Xenia later came to be located, as early as 1797, both families coming up here from Kentucky, among the first persons permanently to settle in this section. Mary Galloway was a daughter of Squire George Galloway, who lived to be ninety-six years of age. William Collins was born in 1800, one of the first white children born in the territory that later came to be incorporated in the organization of Greene county, and was a son of William and Lydia (Manifold) Collins, who were married in York county, Pennsylvania, went from there to Kentucky and after a few years of residence in that state came up here into the valley of the Little Miami about the year 1797 and settled on the west bank of the river about seven miles north of the present site of Xenia and about two miles from the place where the Galloways had just previously settled. This pioneer couple were the parents of ten children, Joseph, Samuel, William, John. James, Mary, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Grace and Ibbe, and the descendants of these children in the present generation form a numerous connection hereabout. Tlie Collinses, as were the Galloways, were Seceders and when the Rev. Robert Armstrong presently came up here from Kentucky and took pastoral charge of the several families of Seceders faith that had meanwhile settled in this region, the land on which the old Massies Creek church was built was donated out of the Collins lands, William Collins long, serving as one of the ruling elders of that congregation.
The younger William Collins grew up on the home farm along the river and as a young man bought a farm of about four hundred acres in Cedarville township, a portion of that tract now forming a part of the farm owned by his grandson, the subject of this sketch. After his marriage to Mary Galloway he established his home there and there spent the remainder of his life. He was a member of the Associate Presbyterian (Seceder) church and was for years an elder in the old Massies Creek church. He was a very active anti-slavery man in the days when opposition to the "sacred institution" meant something to the persons who thus dared openly to confront and defy the authority of the slave-holding power and cast his vote against the institution when there was but one other man in the county to join him in thus registering his defiance. His home was one of the much-frequented stations of the "underground railroad" in those days and he was one of the active "conductors" in the humane work of transferring fugitive slaves from station to station along the line of that "road" through this state. In the days before the coming of the railroads he did much hauling between this section and Cincinnati. William Collins was twice married. By his first wife, Mary Galloway, he was the father of four children, those besides the father of the subject of this sketch having been George, deceased, who was a farmer in Cedarville township: Lydia, who is now living at Xenia, widow of Henry Corry, and Martha, who married David Bradfute, a farmer of this county and who, as well as her husband, is now deceased. Following the death of the mother of these children, William Collins married Catherine Dinsmore and to that union were born four children, Dinsmore S., now living in Colorado; Mitchell W., a resident of Cedarville, this county; Clarkson B., now a resident of California, and one who died in infancy.
James Wallace Collins grew up on the home farm and after his marriage to Mary Gordon established his home there, buying one hundred acres of the place from his father, and later added to the same until he had one hundred and fifty acres. In 1871 he left the farm and with his family moved to Xenia, where his son Andrew grew up and attended school, and in 1887 returned to the farm, which his son meanwhile had begun to operate and which the latter presently bought, and there he spent most of the rest of his life, continuing after the death of his wife in 1888 to make his home with his son. His death occurred at the home of Mrs. Corry in Xenia on January 21, 1915. He and his wife were members of the United Presbyterian church. For years he retained his affiliation with the Republican party, but in the later years of his life put in his lot with the Prohibitionists.
Andrew Gordon Collins was about six years of age when his parents left the farm and moved to Xenia and in that city he received his schooling. Upon leaving the high school he took charge of his father's farm and in due time bought the same and has continued ever since to make his home there, having definitely established his home on the place after his marriage in the fall of 1891. In 1913 he built a handsome new house of the bungalow type on the place. Since taking possession of the old home place Mr. Collins has added to the same by purchase of adjoining land until now he is the owner of two hundred and twenty-seven acres. Though "independent" in his general political views, Mr. Collins's sentiments incline him strongly to the cause of the Prohibition party and he is an earnest champion of the rapidly growing anti-liquor movement. For the past ten years Mr. Collins has been a member of the Cedarville township school board. He was a member of the board at the time of the erection of the consolidated school building at Cedarville, a building regarded as the finest of its type in the state, in comparison with the population supporting it, and naturally feels some pride in the action of the board in that matter. He and his family are members of the United Presbyterian church at Clifton and for the past twelve years or more he has been one of the ruling elders of that congregation.
On November 12, 1891. Andrew G. Collins was united in marriage to Mary M. Rife, who was born in Miami township, this county, daughter of John and Mary (Kitchen) Rife, both now deceased, and to this union eight children have been born, namely: Mary Dorothy, born on October 25, 1894, who was graduated from Cedarville College and is now teaching school in Butler county; John Wallace, December 1, 1895, who was graduated from Cedarville College in 1917 and is now a sergeant of the national army; William Rife, January 4, 1897, who was graduated from Cedarville College in the spring of 1918; .Andrew Roger, November 12, 1898, who is now attending Cedarville College; Marion Earl, June 22, 1903, a junior in Cedarville high school; Margaret Pauline, July 24. 1904, a student in the Cedarville high school; Ruth Gordon, June 28. 1907, and James Robert, February 16, 1910.
John Rife, father of Mrs. Collins, was born on September 24, 1832, in Adams county, Pennsylvania, not far from the Maryland line, son of Daniel and Mary (Foreman) Rife, and there early learned the trade of blacksmith. When eighteen years of age he came to Ohio to join his brother, who some time previously had come out here, and some time later he went to Logansport, Indiana, and thence tn Springfield, Illinois, continuing to work at his trade, but after awhile returned to Ohio and located at Pitchin, in the neighboring county of Clark, where he set up a blacksmith shop. While living there, in the fall of 1856, he married. Two years later he moved down to Selma and there continued blacksrnithing until 1862, when he leased the Taylor tract of twelve hundred acres in Clark and Greene counties and for five years thereafter operated the same, eventually effecting a sale of the estate in behalf of the heirs. Meanwhile, in the spring of 1866, Mr. Rife had bought a part of the Randolph farm in Miami township, this county, and in 1867 located on that place, where he spent the rest of his life, his death occurring on Christmas Day, 1899. For some years Mr. Rife served as trustee of Miami township and for more than fifteen years was a member of the Clifton school board. Reared a Democrat, he became an Abolitionist and then a Republican, but in 1888 espoused the cause of the Prohibition party. He and his wife were members of the United Presbyterian church at Clifton and he was for years one of the trustees of the congregation and one of the teachers in the Sunday school. In addition to his property interests in this county Mr. Rife owned several hundred acres of farming land in Kansas. During the trial of the Hopkins-Fidelity Bank cases in the federal court at Cincinnati in 1888-89, Mr. Rife was the foreman of the jury which convicted Hopkins.
On September 25, 1856, at the home of the bride in Clark county, John Rife was united in marriage to Mary J. Kitchen, a school teacher, who was born in that county, August 11, 1836, twin sister of Erasmus J. Kitchen, and daughter of Abraham and Martha M. (Jones) Kitchen, the latter of whom was born in the neighboring county of Fayette, but whose parents subsequently came over into Greene county, where she was living when she married Abraham Kitchen in 1829. Abraham Kitchen was born in the neighboring county of Warren in 1808, his parents, Stephen and Ann (Bacaw) Kitchen, Pennsylvanians, having been among the pioneers of this section of Ohio, and after his marriage located on a farm in section 4 of Greene township, in the neighboring county of Clark, but two years later bought a larger farm in that same neighborhood and on this latter place he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives, both dying in 1888, the latter on May 28 and the former on June 28. They were the parents of eight children, of whom five grew to maturity, married and reared families, those besides Mrs. Rife having been Margaret Ann, who married John McCollough; J. S., who made his home in Springfield, Ohio; I. N., who remained a farmer in Greene township, and Erasmus J., twin brother of Mrs. Rife, who served from September, 1861, to July 30, 1865, as a soldier of the Union during the Civil War, and who also remained a farmer in Greene township, Clark county. Mrs. Rife survived her husband for a little more than five years, her death occurring in February, 1905. John Rife and his wife were the parents of ten children, those besides Mrs. Collins having been George W., who married Jennie Garlough; Stephen K., who married Ada Stormont and moved to Kansas; John Bruff, of Greene county; Frederick F., who moved to Kansas; Anna, who died at the age of three years; Frank A., who died at the age of eighteen years; William C, who is living on the home place; Margaret B., also at home, and Lee E., of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A. Broadstone, editor. B. F. Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918