My grandfather, Newman Collins (1865-1953), wrote this journal during vacation trips to Port Republic, New Jersey, in the period 1887-1890, when he was in his early twenties. At the time, he was becoming accomplished as a young architect and civil engineer in Philadelphia and Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Port Republic was, and remains, a small, sleepy town on the coast of New Jersey that borders on the south bank of the Mullica River near its mouth at Great Bay, in modern Atlantic County.
Newman’s great-great-grandfather was a Dr. Richard Collins (1725-1808), who is believed to have immigrated from Strabane, Tyrone County, Ulster Province, Ireland in about 1760. He bought land in Port Republic and became the first medical doctor in the area, also establishing a farm and mill at ‘Collins Mills’. During the 1887-1890 period of the Diary, Newman’s grandfather Captain John Collins (1808-1900) had a farm at Chestnut Neck, a mile or so north of town on the Mullica River, and a house in town that you can locate on the above map image that dates from 1878.
Newman had summered at his grandfather’s farm throughout his youth. He became an outstanding sailor in this pre-motor era. The journal reports many fishing and bathing trips with townspeople of Port Republic that he organized using rented or borrowed boats. Often he met up with his brother Tom (Thomas Jefferson Collins), who also visited on vacations. There are numerous humorous stories and vignettes of Old Port Republic. In the period after the journal was written, during the 1900’s and 1910’s, Newman built and raced sailboats in yachting clubs, especially in the New York area, winning many races. He wrote a separate journal detailing his many races and wins.
Professionally, Newman Collins, whose full name was Daniel Charles Newman Collins, later became an architect specializing in steel framed industrial buildings in New York City, Newark, New Jersey, and other locations. His father died of smallpox in New Orleans in 1865, before he was born, so his family was relatively poor. He obtained only an eighth-grade formal education but apprenticed himself as a carpenter in his teens and achieved sufficient professional recognition by 1900 to be inducted as full member of the American Society of Civil Engineers on the basis of an impressive portfolio of accomplishments. He designed cableways for locks on the Panama Canal in the early 1900’s and later designed concrete ships for the war effort during World War I. In the 1910’s and 1920’s, he was township engineer of Cranford, NJ, overseeing construction of a raised railroad line through town, and architect in the 1920’s of many school buildings in Cranford and surrounding towns. He worked then to establish a continuous ‘Rahway River Parkway’ through Cranford, a roadway and greenway plan whose partial success can be seen even now. For avocation, Newman was a gifted artisan and artist. He studied art at the Philadelphia Institute in his twenties and later painted outstanding marine paintings, made elaborate frames for his paintings, detailed models of yachts he had built, and created many unique and ingenious gadgets, small pieces of furniture and toys. He also was photographer working with a large format Graflex camera in the early 20th century. Earlier, he had also been captain of a volunteer fire department in Haddonfield, NJ. Newman was also a musician who conducted brass bands of the “Sgt. Pepper’s” sort, played in orchestras in New York City and Philadelphia, and conducted musical groups. In the era before radio and record players, you either made your own music or did without! And he was an inveterate player of cards, chess and other games.
A link in the frame on the right leads to the wonderful eulogy ‘Two Brothers’ that Newman Collins wrote at the time of the premature death of his older brother, Thomas Jefferson Collins, in 1905 . The eulogy has poignant vignettes of Old Port Republic that are well worth reading.
Gary S. Collins, 22 March 2008
