Nebraska, Pennsylvania The Collin mansion - Remains of Settlements on Waymarking.com

The town of Nebraska, Pennsylvania came into being in 1827, and in 1848 the town was named as Ford and Lacy Mills or Lacytown. In 1855 a post office was established and the town was named Nebraska. The town had stores, lumbering mills, black smiths, churches, hotels, and other homesteads. All which were torn down in 1940 when the Tionesta dam was built and the valley was flooded.

The Collins homes in Nebraska was one that had an indoor bathrooms. It also had a full foundation with separate basement walls. At the time of Mr collins death his assests were $5 million in property and $20 Million dollars in timber.
This ice house was built by T.O. Collins and also used by Fred Klinestiver. It was located to the rear or uphill side of the house. Also which had a spring and Every winter after the creek had frozen to a good thickness, anywhere from one to two feet, company men would take one-man crosscut saws and cut the ice to about one foot square pieces and load them on horse-pulled sleds and haul them to the ice house. On each layer sawdust was placed to to protect the ice from melting.

Truman Daud and Mary Collins had one Son: Everell
T.D. Collins came to Nebraska to stay in 1882 and built his home on the north hillside overlooking Nebraska in 1884. From this home he directed all of his businesses. When traveling to conduct his business, he went by train and horse and buggy. In the early 1900's when automobiles came into being, T.D. still stuck with his horse and buggy. His son, Everell went West in 1887 to look after his father's operations in Washington and Oregon. Which is currently the main office. Later, Everell acquired his own timber and lumber business. Everell's family consisted of his wife, sons Elton and Truman and a daughter, Grace.

T.D. took pride in his town and church. He had good houses built with all the conveniences that were available with spring water, natural gas, concrete sidewalks in the main part of town, company store and a beautiful church. A slate sidewalk was built that led from the towns watering spring located near the intersection near the current Nebraska bridge to his house. To the rear was a Ise house and two barns. To the right was a garage that was built by secondary owners.

In the Methodist Church, he was one of the Sunday School teachers. He had the back room for his class. He not only helped finance the building of the
Nebraska Church, but also the Tionesta M.E. Church and giving hundreds of thousands, plus, to the Methodist Church and its missions. T.D. was one of America's largest contributors to foreign missions. Mr. Collins took a liking to a young man by the name of Eza Chitester and paid his way through college to become a Methodist minister. Eza preached a short time at the Nebraska Church after becoming ordained. Someone asked T.D. one time if his religion ever interfered with his business transactions, he replied, "Church is church and business is business and neither shall intertwine with the other".
T.D. was also one of the founders of the Citizens Bank of Tionesta and for many years was chairman of the board. Probably the greatest asset T.D. had was the ability to make a meager down payment on any kind of a deal in oil, timber or whatever and pay the final payment at a later date. Honesty played big part in his transactions to buy and pay later. This type of dealing gave him the edge over most men of his time. There was only one adventure in T.D.'s total lifetime that he didn't make it. That was when he ran for the General Assembly in Harrisburg on the Republican ticket. The year was 1906 and a Democrat by the name of Shields from Jenks Township beat him by a few votes.

Mr. Collins passed away on Thursday, April 14, 1914 after a long and rewarding life. On the word of his father's advanced illness, Everell Collins brought his family from the West to Pittsburgh by train. There he bought a seven passenger Cadillac and came on to Nebraska. . T.D.'s funeral was like an Irish wake, to some. The day of the funeral, a train went from Sheffield to Nebraska, stopping at every cow crossing to let people on to go to the funeral. A lot of them were drinking and really whooping it up; after all, it was a holiday and a free train ride. Everell had Klinestiver borrow six coaches from the Pennsylvania Railroad to haul all the riders. Collins had two coaches, making a total of eight. Bill Weaver was the engineer and Dad Preston was the fireman. Weaver was the engineer due to using his freight engine. Walter Scott and Tip Hunter were in charge of the funeral train with Klinestiver standing nearby. E.K. Small, Russell Blauser, Claude McMillin, Clyde Preston and Walter Haugh rode the baggage car loaded with flowers which were carried into the church at Nebraska. The services were Monday morning at 10:30 AM. About 600 people were inside and outside the church. After the services, the train loaded up again with people and T.D. and headed for Tionesta arriving at about 1 :30 PM. T.D. was taken by carriage followed by several hundred people, through town to the Methodist Church where a second viewing and service was held. Following the services, Mr. Collins was taken to Mt. Collins Cemetery and placed in the Collins mausoleum beside his wife, Mary. The honorary pallbearers were: F.X. Kreitler, Siggins, O.W. Proper, A.M. Doubt, G.F. Watson, J.C. Geist, L.J. Hopkins, E.L. Dewoody, J.A. Small, F.E. Allison, "Daddy" Jim Smith and George Klinestiver. Actual pallbearers were: K.L. Haugh, H.P. Potter, S.H. Secor, James Thompson, I.H. Allison, F.R. Klinestiver, F.E. Hunter and Wilbur McKean.
Everell spent about two years in the East settling up his father's estate. He stayed in the Collins house until a house in Kellettville was built for him. Before he left, he turned over all of Collins' holdings in the area to Fred Klinestiver to manage and oversee. During his short stay at Nebraska Everell 's son, Elton saw to it some of the young people in town got a ride in the Cadillac. E.K. Small became a good friend of Elton's and received most of the rides. In turn, E.K. took Elton to Lyman Cook's to play cards and listen to stories by Lyman of the early rafting days. A final note: at the time of Mr. Collins' death it was said he owned over $5,000,000 worth of property and other holdings in Pennsylvania. In the states of Washington, Oregon and California, he owned over 100,000 acres of virgin timber worth over $20,000,000.

Terrain: Parking: N 41° 28.375 W 079° 22.938 Recommended access: Not Listed

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Date Logged Log   09/17/2011 Facedances visited it