Mary T. Collins

Said to be buried alongside Isham Collins at Collins Grove Baptish church in Wake County under the name Mary Edwards Collins. One researcher has Thompson as her middle name.

It is odd that the 1888 land transaction among the siblings has a Mary T. Edwards, and no mention of a husband.

It is also odd that the 1888 document notes each has a 1/11 interest, but there are only 10 parties.

possible that this is the same Mary J. or T. who was married to Thomas Collins b. 1842 and lived in Buckhorn township Wake County and had a set of children together. I wonder if her spouse died and she remarried a relative of his.

But that Mary appears to be Mary J. on deed records where Isham Collins sells land to Thomas B. Collins in 1884, so maybe not.

Researcher tbauer115 on ancestry.com reports that this was Isham's second marriage, and was in 1896, which would explain that she was still single at age 40 when the 1888 land division occurred.

The death certificate for Charlie H. Collins reports his mother as Mary Ann Olive. R. A. Collins was the source.

from Betsy Collins:

there is quite a story about the Mary Anns, the two wives of my father's grandfather . . . the first Mary Ann (nee Mary Ann Olive), after she died, appeared in a dream at the door of the home of her widower . . . . with her was a strange woman, who she introduced as Mary Ann - she brought her in and showed her where everything was kept, what was in the cupboards and so forth . . . and they left - the next day the widower was out riding as a surveyor (he had a foot that had been injured because he got it in a fire when he was a crawling infant . . . he could not do everything and could not serve in the Army of the Confederate States . . . ) - surveyors would stop at houses for water or food, so he stopped at a house and the woman who came to the door was the second Mary Ann, the one he had met in the dream the night before . . . . she was a widow [note from Doug Markham--not sure this is correct] . . . they married . . . and were prone to say, smiling, "We are about as happy as any old couple . . . . "

my notes say that my father had Mary Ann's grave moved to Holly Springs - i believe the graves were in a corn field