LOCAL FOUNDER: The rise and fall of John Collier
In an earlier column, I wrote about Ingleside, the beautiful Greek Revival home on Chenango Street that overlooked the Chenango Canal and was the estate of John A. Collier.
I alluded to the history of this early founder of the Binghamton area but did not delve into the full story. Given the current tone of the presidential campaign, perhaps this is the time to tell the entire episode.
John Allen Collier was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1787. He attended Yale University and studied law before relocating to New York state. In 1809, the 22-year-old moved to the fledgling village of Binghamton to practice law. The next year, he married Barbara Doty, whose family was another early settler to the region.
About this time, John Collier partnered with Daniel Leroy in developing projects for the new town. Most of these projects seemed to be in opposition to the power base already established by Joshua Whitney, William Bingham’s land agent. They worked to build bridges, develop parcels with new buildings, and construct roads. For some reason, possibly because of personality conflicts, Leroy left the area to move out west — leaving Collier to continue in the community.
From 1811 to 1821, Barbara Collier gave birth to four children before her death in 1826. John Collier did not stay single for long, marrying Lydia Shephard in 1829, shortly before she died giving birth to a child that same year. His last marriage was to Elizabeth Morris, who presented him another child when Collier was 50.
While reading most of the early histories of this community, Collier was always described as distinguished and respectable. But there was a darkness that lurked in him — much of which was not aired until long after his death. During the time of his three marriages and continued rise in the community, Collier served as district attorney. By the 1830s, Collier had become embroiled with the developing Whig Party and eventually was elected to a term in the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1831 to 1833. But he lost in his attempt at re-election.
That failure did not deter him from pushing the Whig agenda. He had already made a friend and colleague in Millard Fillmore, a fellow New Yorker. Fillmore was struggling with a fight with the Whigs led by William Seward. As that political battle carried on, the “Sewardites” loathed Collier and said he was a “low buffoon” whose “morals are notoriously profligate to the lowest degree.”
Nevertheless, Collier was instrumental in getting Fillmore nominated to the vice presidency slot in the campaign of Gen. Zachary Taylor during the election of 1848. Taylor, a well-known military leader, won the election and took office in March 1849. But he died suddenly in July 1850, and Fillmore was thrust into the presidency. At the same time, Fillmore worked to get allies like Collier into offices.
As Fillmore was about to appoint Collier as the collector of taxes in the port of San Francisco, allies of Fillmore forced him to withdraw the offer. It seemed that Collier had a penchant for very young women, and he had been arrested for exposing himself in the front window of an Albany hotel. Fillmore’s allies told him that he continued to insist on appointing Collier, they would tell Mrs. Fillmore what Collier had done to be so despised.
Apparently, the fear of his wife’s wrath won out, and instead, Fillmore appointed Collier’s son James, and the Collier clan went west. But once again, the fates were against the family, as James was fired only six months later for fiscal maleficence. Several hundreds of thousands of dollars were found to be missing from the tax money collected at the port.
The Collier family returned home. Somewhere on the trip out or back, the family was arrested twice for fighting with other travelling pioneers. As the Collier family returned to much fanfare, no one in this region realized that the prominent family had underlying problems. Son James would die shortly while in Panama. John Collier outlived several of his children and would die in March 1873. He is buried under a large steel monument in Spring Forest Cemetery.
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