Elizabeth Thomas Gray Collins
Birth & Death Dates Unknown — Appears in an 1814 Record
Primus Collins’ indenture ended when he was eighteen years old, and four years later Reverend Mase Shepard presided over his marriage to Elizabeth Thomas of Little Compton on September 29, 1799.[1]Marriage Record, Little Compton Vital Records, Vol. 2, 34. Elizabeth was the daughter of Sarah Thomas and the step-daughter of Fortune Gray. The couple had two children, Lucy (b. 1801) who remained in Little Compton until her death in 1893 and Amey who married Charles Simmons, a black man from Bermuda, and moved to New Bedford.[2]Primus Collins Obituary, Newport Mercury, February 20, 1858. & Little Compton Land Evidence Records, Book 5, 127; Lucy Collins’ Gravestone, Little Compton Old Burying Ground, Row 1; 1880 … Continue reading
Marjory Gomez O’Toole, Executive Director, LCHS
First published in “If Jane Should Want to Be Sold: Stories of Enslavement, Indenture and Freedom in Little Compton, Rhode Island,” by the Little Compton Historical Society, 2016.
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