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Julius Collins is another gravestone-carver son of Benjamin Collins. He is something of an enigma. After a short career he died at Stillwater, New York, while serving in the army. There is a signed stone by Julius Collins for Richard Curtice (1739) in the Hebron Episcopal burying ground, which is not backdated, was carved when he was 11 years old. More characteristic is the signed stone, now unfortunately broken, for Robert White, Jr., (1746) in the Old Stafford graveyard. Both of these stones resemble the work of his father Benjamin in many respects, but they also include elements of the late style of Obadiah Wheeler in the contour of the layered upswept wings and the less bulbous nose. In addition there is a small group of stones in Coventry, Andover, and Hampton that resemble two unsigned stones, placed near the Robert White, Jr., stone in Stafford. These stones were probably all produced by Julius Collins although there is no direct evidence. The stones in Hampton are of particular interest in being relatively far removed from the others and in likely being the prototypes from which the carver of the bizarre Hampton stones known as those of the “Hampton Indian” took his designs. It is quite surprising that no stones of this type occur in Columbia burial ground where the work of Benjamin and Zerubbabel is abundant.
From: Slater, James A. The Colonial Burying Grounds of
Eastern Connecticut and the Men Who Made Them. Memoirs of the
Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences, vol. 21. Hamden,
Connecticut: Archon Books, 1987.
*Homer Babbidge Library call number f/Q/11/C85/v.21