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Zerubbabel Collins (1733-1797) Zerubbabel was the talented son of Benjamin Collins and, as noted above, carved his father’s gravestone. Dr. Caulfield, the leading student of Connecticut gravestones, commented that Benjamin and his wife Elizabeth afflicted their son with the name Zerubbabel after a minor “begat” but the boy quickly overcame his handicap. Zerubbabel Collins’s stones in eastern Connecticut are of two types: His early stones resemble those of his father Benjamin rather closely. Careful study is needed to distinguish some of the latter work of Benjamin and the earliest work of Zerubbabel. Generally these early stones have the bulbous nose, but down swept, much smaller wings than those found on stones carved by Benjamin Collins. Zerubbabel also frequently used a peculiar cap-like design on the top of the head of the cherub. His most characteristic work, which developed a few years after his father died, consists of a large, prominent jawed, deeply incised face with small wings arising from the face and below this an elaborate curving and twisting scroll like floral design. Zerubbabel Collins moved to Vermont in 1778 and began to carve in white marble. Many of his beautiful stones may be seen there, especially in the graveyards in Shaftsbury and Bennington. However, there are two of these marble stones in Columbia – one apparently is an advertisement for the price is prominently displayed. There are granite stones of a similar type in Glastonbury, Pomfret, Hebron (Gilead), E. Hartford, Andover and the Brooklyn Episcopal cemetery with dates later than 1778. That for Ebenezer Williams (1780) is by Aaron Haskins (probate record) who evidently carved all of these imitation stones.
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