Samuel Collins

Sources, or the lack thereof, suggest that Samuel Collins and his wife were the first Collins in the area of Newfoundland known as Bonavista North. They were pioneers.

By the time this couple was past their fifties, their children and in-laws seem to have made up the population of the New Harbor and Shoe Cove area. The other family names included Keats, Parsons, and Hunt.

When he was in his seventies, Samuel was listed as being a planter in Greenspond. Around this period, he also requested compensation from the Government "for relief afforded travelers by him for many years past." The government of Newfoundland did offer compensation for people who helped crewmembers stranded after shipwrecks and other such disasters. Given his late age, this request was likely to help in the support of his family.

The population of Shoe Cove was 34 in 1891. It was after this point that the Collins family began to move towards Hare Bay. At some point in the early 1900s, Shoe Cove would be abandoned, although for a while many of the Collins family would return in the summer to fish.