Yuma County, Colorado
Photographs

The same post has Samuel dying October 25, 1855, buried in Doniphan, Kansas.

Children :James Wesley Collins, Thomas Jefferson Collins, Nancy Jane Collins, Phoebe Ann Collins, William Harrison Collins, Martha Collins, Margaret Collins, Samuel Harry Collins, Eli Franklin Collins, Elias Perry Collins, Mary Emaline Collins

One tree said that his brother-in-law James Wm. Ingles was with him in Nodaway County, Missouri.

The following account is from the November 7, 1855 edition of the Daily
Kansas Freeman:
We learn by a gentleman who has just arrived from the North part of the Territory, that a serious affray occurred on Thursday last at Doniphan city. The parties were Patrick Laughlin and Samuel Collins. Laughlin professed to
have made known to the public the secrets of a Free State organization in Kansas. Collins charged him with being a traitor --whereupon Laughlin drew a pistol and shaped it at Collins. Collins then drew a bowie knife and
rushed towards Laughlin, and cut him severely. Laughlin then shot Collins dead on the spot. Laughlin was wounded severely and is not expected to survive. It is also reported that several other persons were engaged in the affray, and a few of them were wounded.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Chapter 4 of John Brown: The Making of a Martyr by the late Poet Laureate of the United States, Robert Penn Warren. Published by Payson & Clarke Ltd. New York, 1929 and reprinted in 1970 by the Scholarly Press in St. Claire Shores, Michigan:

Up near the town of Atchison lived an Irishman by the name of Patrick  Laughlin, who for a while had been active in one of the secret societies with which the region abounded. He had been elected as delegate to the Big
Springs Free State convention, and had attended along with Samuel Collins, the vociferous proprietor of a sawmill at Doniphan. After the convention had finished its business Laughlin returned by way of Lawrence, where G. W.
Brown, editor of the Herald of Freedom, exhibited to him Sharpe's rifles, blue jackets, white trousers, drums, and all the paraphernalia of freedom.
Mr. Brown gave him four sealed books containing the constitution and ritual of the grand encampment of the "Kansas Legion," which Laughlin was to administer to Free State sympathizers at his home of Doniphan and in the
country north of that town. Laughlin was also to take statements from Free State men concerning the conduct of elections and Missouri interference; later he maintained that the men who gave him this information admitted it
to be exaggerated. Laughlin did not organize the project encampments of the "Legion," and after he suffered this change of heart, his sense of honor somehow did not impel him to keep the secrets of the brotherhood to which he
had belonged.

On the night of October 24 Pat Laughlin went to the office of Dr. Oscar Brown--the Territory seemed full of Browns--to get medicine. Samuel Collins, who had heard of Laughlin's disclosures, dropped in. Collins remarked that a certain James Foreman had given Laughlin a cow to change his politics, and the accused made an appropriate retort. The lie was passed several times. A friend of Collins, James Lynch, tried to smooth matters out and got a threat for his pains. "God damn you, I will kick every rib in you out of you!"  Lynch was a sensitive chap and once said that this embarrassed him very much coming from the mouth of a friend. Collins left the office with a promise to Laughlin: "You or I will land in hell before breakfast tomorrow morning." Mr. Lynch overcame his embarrassment and rushed out to get a peace warrant on the fire-eating Collins; he told the constable that the specified time was before breakfast. The night was cold, with the hardest fall freeze John Brown had ever seen south of Elba, but Laughlin was in the street before breakfast with a bucket of flour on his arm. Collins rushed out from his sawmill, brandishing a double-barrelled shot-gun, and demanded that Laughlin take back a variety of his previously expressed sentiments. "I haven't got anything to take back, said Laughlin, and his adversary aimed at the
point-blank range of six yards. The gun clicked. There was a little one-sided knife play, with Laughlin dodging around, dangling his bucket, until Collins stabbed him in the left side. Collins again raised the gun with the idea of finishing his job. This time the gun went off, but Foreman, the alleged donor of the political cow, had knocked down the barrel so that the charge entered the ground at Laughlin's feet. Lynch, who had been aroused by the shout that Collins was going to kill everybody in town, fired from a doorway. The shot spattered on a board wall, Collins laid his sensitive friend out with the butt of his shot-gun and charged Laughlin. The victim of Collins' bowie knife now ran no chances. He got his pistol out , took cool aim, and fired. Collins dropped his upraised gun-barrel, and
clasped his arms about his chest, crying, "O Lord." He wavered in his tracks for a moment and then sank dying to the ground. Mr. Collins' son clubbed Laughlin. His nephew threw a half-brick at the prostrate Irishman.
Laughlin's brother got hold of the pistol, fired at the nephew, and deliberately presented it at the son. Young Collins threw up his hands. "Don't shoot me. He's killed my father!" Laughlin's brother lowered his gun. The ground was covered with blood," said a witness, like one had been butchering a hog."

The excitement did not die down quickly. No one took out a warrant for Laughlin, but there were threats of summary justice for both him and Lynch from Free State sympathizers. The house where he lay was guarded, and as soon as possible he was moved over the Missouri line to St. Joseph. The news of the bloody matter must have reached Brownsville just before John Brown wrote his letter home on November 2: "I feel more and more confident that slavery will soon die out here,...and to God be the praise!" It is interesting to speculate what John Brown's sentiments were in the light of his own Masonic adventure and the murder of William Morgan; it is not at all unlikely that those sentiments were, logically, somewhat inconsistent. In any case the incident became grist for the Free State mill.

--------------------------------------------------------

One witness testified " After Mr. Collins had knocked Mr. Lynch down, he turned round and advanced towards Laughlin, with the barrels of his gun raised as for a blow. Mr. Laughlin had his pistol out and fired at Mr. Collins, who dropped his gun barrels and clasped his arms around his breast, and cried out, "Oh, Lord!" He soon sank down on the ground, and died in a few minutes. Mr. Laughlin was knocked down with a club, just after he
had fired his pistol, by son of Mr. Collins, I think. After Laughlin fell, Mr. Collins' nephew threw a piece of brick at him, which just brushed his hair. Mr. Laughlin's brother ran up at this moment, and seized the pistol which had fallen out of the hands of his brother, and fired at Mr. Collins' nephew, who was running away, and the ball just grazed the side of his neck. He then turned and presented the pistol and young Collins, who had knocked his brother down, who threw up both hands and asked him not to shoot, that his father was dead, and he desisted."

So it's likely that Thomas and/or William were present when their father was killed