The Hardison Family from Caribou, Maine
The Hardison Family from Caribou, Maine
First Generation
First Generation
1. Ivory Hardison , son of Joseph Hardison and Betsy Hearl , was born in 1799 in Berwick, York, ME, died on 11 May 1875 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME, at age 76, and was buried in Caribou, Aroostook, ME.
Noted events in his life were:
• Moved: Abt 1840, Berwick, York, ME.
Ivory married Dorcas Abbott , daughter of Jacob Abbott and Dorcas Libbey , on 23 Oct 1822 in China, Kennebec, ME.
Children from this marriage were:
+ 2 M i. Oliver Abbott Hardison was born on 18 May 1829 in Kennebec, Maine and died on 25 Jun 1902 in Caribou, , Maine, at age 73.
+ 3 F ii. Mary Ann Hardison was born on 21 Apr 1831 in Winslow, Kennebec, ME, died on 23 Jun 1916 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA, at age 85, and was buried in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA.
4 M iii. Rufus Hardison was born about 1823 in China, Kennebec, ME.
+ 5 M iv. Jacob Hardison was born on 11 Mar 1825 in Winslow, Kennebec, ME, died on 27 Mar 1891 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME, at age 66, and was buried in Caribou, Aroostook, ME.
+ 6 F v. Dorcas S. Hardison was born on 7 Mar 1827 in Winslow, Kennebec, ME and died on 10 Sep 1919 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME, at age 92.
+ 7 M vi. Martin Van Buren Hardison was born on 2 Nov 1835 in China, ME and died on 18 Dec 1895 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME, at age 60.
+ 8 M vii. Ai Hardison was born on 31 Mar 1838 in Winslow, Kennebec, ME and died on 14 Nov 1916 in Whittier, CA, at age 78.
+ 9 M viii. James Henry Hardison was born on 5 Feb 1841 in China, Kennebec, ME, died on 4 Nov 1929 in Montebelo, CA, at age 88, and was buried in Whittier, CA.
+ 10 M ix. Harvey Hardison was born on 9 Feb 1844 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME and died on 4 Apr 1890 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA, at age 46.
+ 11 F x. Ida M. Hardison was born on 24 Jul 1846 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME and died on 30 Oct 1925 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA, at age 79.
+ 12 M xi. Wallace Libby Hardison was born on 26 Aug 1850 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME and died on 10 Apr 1909 in Roscoe, CA, at age 58.
Second Generation (Children)
2. Oliver Abbott Hardison (Ivory1) was born on 18 May 1829 in Kennebec, Maine and died on 25 Jun 1902 in Caribou, , Maine, at age 73.
Oliver married Mary Louise O'leary in 1851.
Children from this marriage were:
13 M i. Edwin A Hardison .
Edwin married Mary Walker .
14 F ii. Annie Hardison .
Annie married Clarence Titcomb .
15 M iii. Lewis Abbott Hardison was born in 1857 and died in 1881, at age 24.
Lewis married Margaret Brooking .
16 M iv. George Wallace Hardison was born on 29 Feb 1864 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME and died on 2 Apr 1941 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME, at age 77.
George married Terssa Hardison , daughter of Martin Van Buren Hardison and Lucy Nickerson , on 7 May 1893.
3. Mary Ann Hardison (Ivory1) was born on 21 Apr 1831 in Winslow, Kennebec, ME, died on 23 Jun 1916 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA, at age 85, and was buried in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA.
Mary married James Bishop .
Children from this marriage were:
17 F i. Zittie Evelyn Bishop .
5. Jacob Hardison (Ivory1) was born on 11 Mar 1825 in Winslow, Kennebec, ME, died on 27 Mar 1891 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME, at age 66, and was buried in Caribou, Aroostook, ME.
Jacob married Elizabeth Adaline Smiley on 7 Mar 1850.
Children from this marriage were:
19 M i. Waldo A. Hardison was born on 11 Feb 1851 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME and died on 9 Dec 1936 in Santa Barbara, Ca, at age 85. The cause of his death was subsequent to a car accident.
On reaching his majority, he left home to engage in business in the oil fields of Pennsylvania, a business he has followed ever since and in which he has acquired a comfortable fortune.
For many years he has been interested financially in the citrus industry of Southern California and owns fine properties in lemon groves in Sespe. His permanent residence for many years was at Bolivar, N.Y., but he is now a resident of Santa Paula.
20 M ii. Lowell Mason Hardison was born on 25 Aug 1852 and died on 1 Oct 1946, at age 94.
Lowell M. Hardison was engaged in business in Caribou for a number of years; he also served as deputy sheriff and town treasurer. Afterwards, he went to Pennsylvania and engaged in the oil business. He moved to Santa Paula, Cal., in 1883 and follows the occupation of a rancher.
Lowell married Allie L Wilson .
Lowell next married Sophia Kiefer .
21 M iii. Haines Sidney Hardison was born on 4 May 1855 and died on 5 Jan 1930, at age 74.
Haines married May Merrill on 1 Jan 1878 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME.
22 M iv. Parker Leroy Hardison was born on 12 Feb 1860 and died on 14 Dec 1918, at age 58.
+ 23 M v. Allen Crosby Hardison was born on 22 Apr 1869 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME and died on 7 Jul 1965 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA, at age 96.
6. Dorcas S. Hardison (Ivory1) was born on 7 Mar 1827 in Winslow, Kennebec, ME and died on 10 Sep 1919 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME, at age 92.
Dorcas married Samuel Wilson Collins in Dec 1844.
Children from this marriage were:
+ 24 M i. Charles Prescott Collins was born on 12 Dec 1847 in Aroostook County, Maine and died in 1918 in Bradford, Mckean Co., Pennsylvania, at age 71.
+ 26 F iii. Clara Wilson Collins was born in 1849 and died in 1935, at age 86.
7. Martin Van Buren Hardison (Ivory1) was born on 2 Nov 1835 in China, ME and died on 18 Dec 1895 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME, at age 60.
Martin married Lucy Nickerson .
Children from this marriage were:
27 M i. Harvey Hardison .
28 F ii. Terssa Hardison was born on 25 May 1869 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME and died on 2 Jun 1943 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME, at age 74.
Terssa married George Wallace Hardison , son of Oliver Abbott Hardison and Mary Louise O'leary , on 7 May 1893.
(Duplicate Line. See Person 0 )
8. Ai Hardison (Ivory1) was born on 31 Mar 1838 in Winslow, Kennebec, ME and died on 14 Nov 1916 in Whittier, CA, at age 78.
Ai married Josephine Pratt .
Children from this marriage were:
29 F i. Eliza Hardison was born on 15 Jan 1867 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME.
Eliza married William Loftus .
30 F ii. Luna Hardison was born on 31 Jan 1869 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME.
Luna married William B. Scott .
31 M iii. Artson Pratt Hardison was born on 1 Feb 1871 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME.
Artson married Edna Dean , daughter of Eugene Dean and Eliza Brooking .
32 F iv. June E. Hardison was born on 10 Jun 1873 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME.
33 F v. Claire Hardison was born on 27 Jul 1876 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME.
34 F vi. Edith Hardison was born on 15 Nov 1879 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME.
35 M vii. Burt Hardison was born on 10 Feb 1881 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME.
Burt and Ivory [...] are successful oil operators in Kern County, California.
36 M viii. Ivory Hardison was born on 22 Jul 1883 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME.
Burt and Ivory [...] are successful oil operators in Kern County, California.
[...]
Ivory married Miss Marian Brunner in June 1918. They reside in McKittrick and have one child.
9. James Henry Hardison (Ivory1) was born on 5 Feb 1841 in China, Kennebec, ME, died on 4 Nov 1929 in Montebelo, CA, at age 88, and was buried in Whittier, CA.
First of the Hardison brother to go to work on the Western Pennsylvania oil fields.
James married Mary Brookings .
Children from this marriage were:
37 M i. Wallace B Hardison .
10. Harvey Hardison (Ivory1) was born on 9 Feb 1844 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME and died on 4 Apr 1890 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA, at age 46.
An oil driller along with S.C. Graham in the early Hardison & Steward operation in Ventura county. He was killed with a seep exploded.
Oil, Land and Politics
The California Career of Thomas Robert Bard
By W. H. Hutchinson
1965, University of Oklahoma Press
Volumes I & II
Vol I pgs 333-34
John Irwin spudded in H. S. & C.'s first California well on the Smith Farm lease in Santa Paula Canyon on July 31, 1883, and Harvey Hardison was the "tool pusher" for their Pico Canyon operations at a spot known ever since as "Christian Hill" because of Stewart's insistence that the crews refrain from damning their oil-blackened souls with profanity.
Tragedy struck Hardison atop Collin's declining faith when his cherished older brother Harvey, his right-hand man in field operations was killed on April 4, 1890, by and explosion of gas in one of H. & S.'s tunnels on Sulphur Mountain.
Two of [Wallace] Hardison's older brothers had migrated to Pennsylvania and had learned the driller's trade and learned it well. They became contract drillers for the Stewarts, as well as wildcatters in their own right, and Harvey Hardison held Lyman Stewart's highest accolade, "he always left a clean hole."
Volume II - Page 36-37
Harvey Hardison was the "tool pusher" at four dollars a day and S. C. "Cam" Graham and William "Billy" Loftus received the same amount as drillers. Graham and Loftus were veterans of the Pennsylvania fields, recruited for California by Milton Stewart, and their later direct alliance with Bard became a most profitable and important one for all three men.
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One of the firm's [Hardison & Stewart Oil Compnay] tunnels into the mountainside was the Adams Tunnel No. 4, more commonly called the Boarding House Tunnel. By April 4, 1890, it had penetrated 950 feet into Sulphur Mountain under the direction of Harvey Hardison, the brother of Wallace Hardison. Early that morning an explosion occurred deep within the tunnel. Fortunately, no one was killed in the initial explosion, and Wallace Hardison, who had rushed to the mine site, ordered everyone to stay clear of the shaft. Afterward, he left to take four injured workers for medical care. While he was gone, Harvey Hardison, ignoring his brother's instructions, led an inspection party of three other men into the shaft to examine the damage. They were seven hundred feet into the tunnel when another explosion occurred. Harvey and two of the other men were killed. Because of such dangers, oil men eventually replaced the tunnelswith wells, some of the earliest of which were drilled by the Hardison & Stewart Oil Company.
Noted events in his life were:
• Moved: After 1860, Titusville, PA.
• Moved: 1883, Santa Paula, Ventura, CA.
Harvey married Delphine Weatherby .
Children from this marriage were:
39 M i. Frank Hardison .
40 M ii. Seth Hardison .
Seth is engaged in the oil business in Coalinga, Caif.
41 F iii. Ida Hardison .
42 F iv. Ruth Hardison was born on 16 Jan 1863.
Accompanied Fred to the Santo Domingo mine.
Ruth married Fred Brown , son of Addison John Brown and Ida M. Hardison .
11. Ida M. Hardison (Ivory1) was born on 24 Jul 1846 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME and died on 30 Oct 1925 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA, at age 79.
Ida married Addison John Brown , son of Simon Brown and Zilphia Hall , on 30 Oct 1867 in Presque Isle, Aroostook, ME.
Children from this marriage were:
+ 43 M i. Chester Wallace Brown was born on 29 Oct 1868 in Washburn, ME and died on 5 Oct 1934, at age 65.
44 M ii. Fred Brown was born on 3 Apr 1877 in Washburn, ME and died in 1907, at age 30.
He came with his mother to Santa Paula and worked for a number of years in the oil fields of Ventura county. He then went with his brother Chester to Peru, South America, to take charge of the transportation work of the Inca Mining Company. The task was a tremendous and dangerous one, for all the gold taken from the mine had to be carried out by Mr. Brown, and all the provisions to feed some two hundred employes had to be brought to the mine over the highest points of the Andes, on the backs of Indians.
Fred Brown married in Santa Paula, Ruth Hardison, daughter of Harvey and Delphine (Weatherby) Hardison, and she was with him in Peru during all the years of his employment with the Inca Mining Company. On their return to this country they established again a residence in Santa Paula.
During the World War Mrs. Brown was very active in Red Cross work in Santa Paula.
Fred married Ruth Hardison , daughter of Harvey Hardison and Delphine Weatherby .
(Duplicate Line. See Person 0 )
+ 45 F iii. Mayme Brown was born on 4 Jan 1873 in Washburn, ME.
12. Wallace Libby Hardison (Ivory1) was born on 26 Aug 1850 in Caribou (Lyndon), Aroostook, ME and died on 10 Apr 1909 in Roscoe, CA, at age 58. The cause of his death was killed by a train.
One of the founding owners of Union Oil Company. He was also the leader of the venture at the Santo Domingo gold mines in the Peruvian Andes.
Stewart and Hardison met in the Pennsylvania oil fields, which boomed after the country's first oil well was drilled near Titusville in 1859. The partners built up modest oil fortunes, then sold out and moved west in the 1880's to seek greater opportunities in California.
In 1890, Stewart and Hardison combined their oil assets with those of Thomas Bard, a prominent businessman, to form the Union Oil Company of California. The company was incorporated on October 17, 1890, in the small town of Santa Paula, located about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
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Born and raised in the heart of the first Pennsylvania field, member of a clannish family, Presbyterian to the core, and eighteen months older than Bard, Lyman Stewart's oil-field education had been broken by Civil War service. Two years after Appomattox, he and his associates, including his older brother Milton, had made a strike in northern Venango County, Pennsylvania, that quickly yielded them $1,750,000 in oil profits. Milton, a canny man with a fixation for doing cash business only, continued to follow the oil game and increased his fortune. Lyman, after being credited with a fortune of $300,000 and a weekly income of $1,000, backed a competitor to the McCormick Reaper and was flattened financially.
This was a traumatic experience for a man imbued with the mystique that material success was possible evidence of God's election for salvation, and it ingrained a fear in Lyman Stewart that foreverafter struggled with his desire for vast, fast wealth from oil. After being discharged from bankruptcy in 1873, he returned to the oil game in a small way with a family firm that caused his contact with Wallace Libby Hardison, Maine-born and ten years his junior.
Two of Hardison's older brothers had migrated to Pennsylvania and had learned the driller's trade and learned it well. They became contract drillers for the Stewarts, as well as wildcatters in their own right, and Harvey Hardison held Lyman Stewart's highest accolade, "he always left a clean hole."
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Wallace Hardison was a massive man with bristling, black mustaches, an elastic, impatient stride, and a restlessly brilliant mind. Desk work and details were not for him, and he loved the hurly-burly of the oil fields almost as much as he loved good horseflesh. Quick to act, and quicker still to make decisions requiring action, he was genial, friendly, outgoing, impulsive, and generous to a fault. Espousing the Universalist faith, he lacked Stewart's compulsive piety, and he was a Republican activist, while Stewart by comparison was apolitical. Both men were most competent in the fields they knew-crude production and speculation-and both knew the parlous position of a producer at the mercy of the Rockefeller Trust's price-setting powers over crude. Neither seems to have been as vitriolic as Milton Stewart, who linked the words "Standard" and "rascal" almost automatically.
Stewart was deeply impressed by the Ex-Mission, the Sespe District, and Pico Canyon when Blake showed them to him in mid-April, 1883. He was heartened, too, by Blake's unwarranted assurance that Blake alone controlled the Ex-Mission. His telegraphed enthusiasm brought Hardison and John Irwin, a Stewart cousin and a competent driller with a nose for oil, to Santa Paula in mid-May. They were similarly impressed, and the result was the formation of Hardison, Stewart and Company (H. S. & C.) which was unincorporated but capitalized at $25,000. The Stewart family took 51 percent of its stock, Hardison and Collins, 49 percent, and Hardison became its president and general manager with Stewart serving as treasurer.
Wallace Hardison's financial straits were even more onerous than his partner's for several reasons, among them the fact that C. P. Collins was never as dependable a source of needed capital as was Milton Stewart. The main reason lay in his purchase of the surface rights to 6,300 acres of the Ex-Mission for $16,500 on November 10, 1883. This identified the Hardison family with Ventura County in a way never done by Lyman Stewart, and made the nucleus of the locally famed Santa Paula Horse and Cattle Company.
Medical Notes: April 10th, 1909, at Roscoe, a small station on the Southern Pacific about sixteen miles from Los Angeles. An engine of the Southern Pacific was running noiselessly and he evidently did not notice its approach as he attempted to cross the track with his auto, in which he was riding alone. He was struck and instantly killed.
Noted events in his life were:
• Moved: 1870, Titusville, PA. To engage in work in the oil fields.
• Moved: 1883, Santa Paula, Ventura, CA.
Wallace married Clara McDonald , daughter of William B. Harrison McDonald and Elizabeth Nickle , in Venango Co., PA.
Children from this marriage were:
46 M i. Guy Hardison was born on 3 Apr 1876.
Noted events in his life were:
• Property: 13 Dec 1898, Los Angeles, CA. Served as witness to contract bining S.C. Graham, William Loftus, Thomas Bard, D. T. PERKINS, and C. H. McKEVETT
+ 47 F ii. Agusta Hardison was born on 29 May 1880.
48 F iii. Hope Hardison was born on 30 Apr 1889.
Third Generation (Grandchildren)
23. Allen Crosby Hardison (Jacob2, Ivory1) was born on 22 Apr 1869 in Caribou, Aroostook, ME and died on 7 Jul 1965 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA, at age 96.
Allen married Cora Lenore Crane , daughter of Jefferson Crane and Janet Briggs , on 14 Dec 1892.
Children from this marriage were:
49 F i. Helen Crane Hardison was born on 11 Dec 1893.
50 M ii. Warren Emmett Hardison was born on 15 Jan 1895.
51 M iii. Ernest Crane Hardison was born on 4 Dec 1896 in Santo Domingo, Peru. Another name for Ernest was "Domingo".
52 F iv. Ruth Crane Hardison was born on 28 Apr 1898.
53 F v. Alice Louise Hardison was born on 20 Mar 1905 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA.
54 M vi. Hardison .
55 F vii. Caralynn Hardison was born on 4 May 1908.
56 M viii. Wallace Libby Hardison was born on 5 Jun 1909.
24. Charles Prescott Collins (Dorcas S. Hardison2, Ivory1) was born on 12 Dec 1847 in Aroostook County, Maine and died in 1918 in Bradford, Mckean Co., Pennsylvania, at age 71.
He was the oldest child of Samuel Wilson and Dorcas (Hardison) Collins, was born in Caribou, Maine, Dec. 12, 1847. His early life was spent at home, where he acquired his education in the public schools, supplemented with a term at Houlton Academy.
After leaving school, he assisted his father in his business as a lumberman and manufacturer and became somewhat familiar with this industry. But it was a restricted field that the woods of northern Maine offered at that time, and the forests of Wisconsin seemed to promise greater opportunities to the ambitious young man. And so he went to that state and worked in lumbering for a year or two.
But marvellous tales came to him in letters from his uncles, James and Harvey Hardison, who a few years previous had gone to Pennsylvania and engaged in the oil industry, and young Collins, then a stalwart, active man of about twenty-three, decided to join them. He entered the field as an operator and thus became eventually one of the best known and successful oil men of the pioneer days of Pennsylvania.
It was in 1869 that he went to Shamburg, Venango Co., and began his apprenticeship by working by the day on wells, dressing tools and drilling. Within the year he had acquired an interest in his first well, located at Shamburg, and the next year he began contracting.
He gave incessant personal attention to the work under his care, and built up a reputation for sagacity combined with honest dealing in all his enterprises.
In 1877 he entered the McKean field. Still continuing contracting, he greatly increased his business by forming partnerships with well-known and skilled operators. In fact, one of the strongest elements of his success was in the personality that firmly held the friendships of all his associates during the ups and downs of a wide business career, and to the day of his death "he never had an enemy" was repeatedly said of him.
In 1891 the Devonian Oil Co. was formed, with a capital of $300,000, and Mr. Collins was its president for many years. He also was the president of the Superior Oil Co. in which he was associated with his uncles, James and Wallace Hardison, and which did a large business.
With an understanding of the true values of the many opportunities constantly being offered to men who have the vision to see them, Mr. Collins embarked in many enterprises, some of them on a large scale, because of a naturally optimistic nature and a respon-siveness that made him an organizer of men and capital.
He was interested in banking and agriculture in Kansas; in gold and copper mines in Arizona and Colorado; in stock raising and citrus groves in California; and in his declining health and advancing years he became one of the pioneers of the oil industry in Oklahoma.
It was in 1896 that he helped to organize the Inca Mining Company with a capital of $1,000,000 to operate a gold mine on the slopes of the Andes in Peru, South America.
The years connected with this enterprise were full of tremendous responsibility and anxiety and he visited the mine in person, making the strenuous trip over the mountains with great vigor for one of his years.
The following extract from a biographical sketch, written of him in the prime of life, will convey a true picture of his life and character.
"Mr. Collins has been for thirty years engaged in the oil business and is one of the exceedingly small number whose labors have been crowned with success.
With strong physical powers, a sound body in a sound mind, throughout his long and active career he has shown himself able to cope with every emergency where ability, talent and energy are demanded, and few men in the oil regions enjoy the respect that is accorded to him. This has been the result of his personal merits and all who know him can testify to his ability, his genuine kindness and true manliness. His private life is without spot or blemish."
Charles P. Collins was married to Miss Ida Merrill (born in Turner, Maine, Feb. 19th, 1851) on October 31st, 1876, in St. Petersburg, Clarion county, Pennsylvania.
It was while on a visit to Mrs. Collins' parents in Caribou, a visit extending over several months because of the illness of her mother, that the first child, Burt Harrison, was born. After this, Mr. and Mrs. Collins resided in Indian Creek, Pa., where the second son, Ray, was born; and then for a few years in Eldred, where a third son, Leo, was born.
They then built a beautiful house in Bradford, McKean Co., and many delightful years were spent there with an interesting family growing up around them.
Their domestic life was indeed unusually happy, for Mrs. Collins is one who believes that the home circle should be the happiest place on earth and is unsparing in unselfish love to make it so.
Quiet and unostentatious in manner, refined and cultured, she was ever the ideal mother and wife and also a helpful friend to the needy and distressed. No one was ever turned away empty-handed from her hospitable door. It was this spirit of loving service that made the last years of her husband's life pass in contentment and happiness.
Forced by ill health to retire from all the activities in which he had been engaged, he found in the home circle the loving ministrations of his sons and their families and the devoted companionship of his wife a compensation that took away the regrets because he was no longer a vital force in the business world.
Thus, patiently, and with a cheerful spirit, he saw the crimsoning shadows of the evening sunset approaching with calmness and fortitude.
But the end came suddenly, as death almost always seems to come. He had gone with his wife and son Leo to spend the summer of 1918 in the Arkansas mountains to avoid the heat of the Oklahoma climate. After a few days of illness the end came with heart failure. He was taken to Bradford for burial in the family lot and many old friends assembled in that city to pay their last respects to one they had loved and honored.
Mr. Collins was a Mason of the thirty-second degree and his lodge in Bradford assisted in the funeral services.
He has been prominently and extensively identified with oil operations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wyoming and California, as well as Oklahoma. He was one of the organizers of the Union Oil and Gas Company and the Devonian Oil Company, of Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, and was vice president of the latter corporation, besides having become an interested principal in many other companies engaged in oil and gas production. He came to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1907, having been one of the organizers of the Bull Dog Oil Company, of which he is vice president, as previously noted. He has traveled extensively and has many capitalistic interests in South America and Alaska, to which latter section he made a visit in 1900. He has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the Masonic fraternity and is a man of large financial interests, his success representing the result of his own ability and well directed endeavors.
From
http://www.rootsweb.com/~okgenweb/books/thoburn/bios3/collin s_ray.txt
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Charles P. Collins, a Hardison cousin, also entered the oil game in Pennsylvania as a leasor and crude-oil speculator. Using funds gained as a railroad-tie contractor, Wallace Hardison joined his cousin in the firm of Collins and Hardison, which sold crude to the Stewarts, and this resulted in an informal partnership between him and Lyman Stewart.
[mid-May 1883]
They were similarly impressed, and the result was the formation of Hardison, Stewart & Company (H. S. & C.) which was unincorporated but capitalized at $250,000. The Stewart family took 51 per cent of its stock, Hardison and Collins, 49 per cent, and Hardison became its president and general manager with Stewart serving as treasurer.
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My father's name was Isaac Hunter, and he died when I was two weeks old. My mother died on my ninth birthday, age thirty-eight. I had a brother, Frederick A. Hunter. I went to live with a brother of my mother, whose name was Horace Jones, who kept a hotel in Bradford, and later removed to the oil fields, nine miles from Eldred, Pa. Here I met Lot M. Merrill and we were married later in the home of his sister, Mrs. C. P. Collins.
http://deepfield.com/merrill.html
Noted events in his life were:
• Moved: 1868, Wisconsin.
• Moved: 1869, Shawnee, Pennsylvania. Worked in the oil fields
Charles married Ida Merrill on 31 Oct 1876 in St. Petersburg, Clarion Co., PA.
Children from this marriage were:
57 M i. Burt Harrison Collins .
After 1901
Mr. Collins spent a number of years in Peru, South America, as manager of the Inca Mining properties.
58 M ii. Ray Merrill Collins .
RAY M. COLLINS Vol. 3, p. 1341-1342
A young man of vigorous purpose and well developed executive ability, Mr. Collins has become prominently identified with the oil industry and other business interests in Oklahoma where he established his residence in 1904, about three years prior to the admission of the state to the Union and where he had maintained his residence in the City of Tulsa since 1906, when he here became general manager of the Bull Dog Oil Company, a position of which he is still the incumbent, his father having been one of the organizers of the company and being still its vice president. Mr. Collins is a scion of sterling New England stock and is a representative of a family whose name has been identified with American annals since the colonial era in our national history.
Ray M. Collins was born at Indian Creek, McKean County, Pennsylvania, and is son of Charles P. and Ida M. (MERRILL) Collins, whose marriage was solemnized at Petersburg, Lancaster County, that state, on the 31st of October, 1876. The parents of Mr. Collins were both born in the State of Maine. Charles P. Collins was born in Aroostook County, Maine, on the 12th of December, 1847, and his wife was born at Turner's Corners, that state, on the 19th of February, 1851. They became the parents of six sons and one daughter and of the number five sons are now living - Burt H., Ray M., Charles L., Samuel W. and Wallace H. The paternal grandparents of him whose name introduces this article were Samuel W. and Dorcas (HARDISON) Collins, the former of whom was born at Calais, Maine, in 1811, and the latter of whom was born at China Springs, that state, in 1826. The grandfather was identified with the lumber industry in the old Pine Tree State during virtually his entire active career and was eighty- seven years of age at the time of his death. His venerable widow, now nearly ninety years of age, still resides in her native state. Of their twelve children Charles L. was the first born and four others of the number are still living.
Charles L. Collins was educated in the common schools and academy in his native county, and in 1868, shortly before attaining to his legal majority, he severed the ties that bound him to the parental home and the state of his nativity, and went to the lumber woods of Wisconsin. He passed the winter of that year in lumbering operations on the Snake River, and in the spring of 1869 went with the log drive down the Snake and St. Croix rivers into the Mississippi River and on to Burlington, Iowa. He thence made his way to Pennsylvania, and in June, 1869, arrived at Shawnee, this state, where he engaged in the oil business and acquired his initial experience in connection with this line of industry. He has been prominently and extensively identified with oil operations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wyoming and California, as well as Oklahoma. He was one of the organizers of the Union Oil and Gas Company and the Devonian Oil Company, of Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, and was vice president of the latter corporation, besides having become an interested principal in many other companies engaged in oil and gas production. He came to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1907, having been one of the organizers of the Bull Dog Oil Company, of which he is vice president, as previously noted. He has traveled extensively and has many capitalistic interests in South America and Alaska, to which latter section he made a visit in 1900. He has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the Masonic fraternity and is a man of large financial interests, his success representing the result of his own ability and well directed endeavors.
Ray M. Collins acquired his preliminary education in the public schools of the City of Bradford, Pennsylvania, continued his studies in Manzanita Hall, a preparatory institution at Palo Alto, California, and completed his higher academic studies in the celebrated Leland Stanford, Jr., University, at Palo Alto. After leaving the university he was identified with gold mining in California about one and one-half years, and in 1904 he came to Indian Territory and located at Osage, where he engaged in contracting for the putting down of oil wells. In 1906 he established his permanent residence in the City of Tulsa, where he became general manager of the Bull Dog Oil Company, to the affairs of which important corporation he has since given much of his time and attention. He is one of the stockholders of this and other corporations in Oklahoma and in California is interested in the growing of lemons. In 1900 he traveled extensively in company with his father, with whom he visited different South American countries and also Alaska.
In politics Mr. Collins is independent, but he is distinctively progressive and public-spirited as a citizen and is loyal to the city and state of his adoption. At Bradford, Pennsylvania, he is affiliated with the following named Masonic organizations: Union Lodge No. 334, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons; Bradford Chapter No. 260, royal Arch Masons; Bradford Council, Royal and Select Masters; and Bradford Commandery No. 58, Knights Templar. In Oklahoma he has extended his Masonic affiliations by becoming a member of Akdar Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, at Tulsa.
On the 26th of November, 1912, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Collins to Miss June C. HUBBARD, who was born and reared at Bradford, Pennsylvania. They have no children.
59 M iii. Samuel Wilson Collins .
26. Clara Wilson Collins (Dorcas S. Hardison2, Ivory1) was born in 1849 and died in 1935, at age 86.
Clara married Milton Dana Teague .
Children from this marriage were:
61 U i. Zoe Teague .
62 F ii. Madge Teague .
63 M iii. Charles Collins Teague was born in 1873.
Charles married Harriett McKevett in 1897.
Clara next married Jacob K Gries .
43. Chester Wallace Brown (Ida M. Hardison2, Ivory1) was born on 29 Oct 1868 in Washburn, ME and died on 5 Oct 1934, at age 65.
Chester Wallace Brown, the elder son of Addison J. and Ida (Hardison) Brown, is now a successful oil man of Los Angeles, California, being the manager of the Field Department of the Union Oil Company of California, and recognized as foremost among the experienced oil men of the state.
For a number of years he was in Peru, South America, where he went in 1895, in company with his uncle, Wallace L. Hardison, to inspect the Negritos oil field, which project was abandoned after three months, having proven not sufficiently inviting. At about the time the Negritos oil project was being investigated there was a great excitement in Lima, the capital of Peru, over a rich gold mine, discovered in the southern part of the Republic by two native Peruvians. Mr. Hardison, always having been a pioneer, was enthused by the prospects of getting into the wilds of Southeastern Peru, and opening up a real gold mine. Mr. Brown was also eager for the adventure and they made a trip together, which took three months, the mode of travel being by steamer south three days, railroad three days and the balance of the time on mule back and on foot. The result of the trip was the purchase of the mine discovered by the two natives and the forming of the Inca Mining Company, with head office at Bradford, Pa. Mr. Brown was general manager for fourteen years, during which period good roads, trails and buildings were erected and the property made accessible and a comfortable place to live. Millions were taken from the mine.
During the fourteen-year period Mr. Brown secured from the Peruvian Government the concession for rubber lands by building a road and trail to a navigable point on the upper Amazon. By the building of roads and trails he secured in fee one million acres of land which was covered by all kinds of tropical timber, among which were rubber trees. This part of Peru had never been explored and was so designated on the Peruvian maps. It took three years for the large force of engineers to locate the lands wanted. After the roads were completed a river steamer was built in Chicago in sections and shipped to Peru. From the railroad point there it was packed on mules and by Indians to a navigable point on the river, which was the terminal of the trail built by him. The distance was 250 miles, which crossed the Andes at an elevation of about 16,000 feet. This project alone took three years. It was an employment calling for great fortitude and industry as well as diplomacy and business ability, and Mr. Brown made an enviable record for fidelity and efficiency.
On one of his visits to Los Angeles he was married to Miss Helen Louis, daughter of Mrs. M. E. Louis.
Chester married Helen Louis .
Children from this marriage were:
64 M i. James Brown was born on 11 Jul 1903 in Arequipa, Peru.
65 F ii. Elizabeth Brown was born on 6 Sep 1907 in Arequipa, Peru.
66 F iii. Freda Brown was born on 25 Feb 1912 in Los Angeles, CA.
67 F iv. Ruth Evelyn Brown was born on 5 Jan 1914 in Los Angeles, CA.
68 F v. Dorcas Abbot Brown was born on 4 Oct 1916 in Los Angeles, CA.
45. Mayme Brown (Ida M. Hardison2, Ivory1) was born on 4 Jan 1873 in Washburn, ME.
Mayme married Samuel Camden Graham , son of William Iddings Graham and Sarah Davis , on 28 Feb 1893 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA.
Noted events in his life were:
• Moved: 1888, Santa Paula, Ventura, CA. The Torrey Canyon Oil Company (TCO) was incorporated on May 21, 1889.
• Census: 1900, Los Angeles, CA. 1900 Los Angeles twp, Los Angeles, CA 636 S Flower St ED 29-1-25 # 5-10 Samuel C Graham 38, born PA, father b PA, mother b PA, oil driller, rents house; Mamie 27 ME ME ME 1 ch 1 liv; Harland B 6 CA PA ME school for 6 mo
• Census: 1910, Los Angeles, CA. 1910 1509 Orange St, Los Angeles, CA 108-7 # 6-9 Samuel C Graham 48 mar 17 yr PA oil producer, rents house; Mamie B 37 ME 2 ch 2 liv; Harland B 16 CA school, Graydon B 7 CA school
• Moved: Abt 1932, Los Angeles, CA. 431 Kingsley Drive
Los Angeles, California
(envelope in my possession)
• Residence: Abt 1927, Augua Tibia Ranch, San Diego Co., CA.
• Public Office: Police Commission, 1909, Los Angeles, CA. 1909-1910
• Public Office: Power and Water Commision, 1912, Los Angeles, CA. 1912-1913
Children from this marriage were:
+ 69 M i. Harland Brown Graham was born on 6 Jan 1894 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA and died on 26 Apr 1965 in Alhambra, CA, at age 71.
+ 70 M ii. Grayson Bard Graham was born on 12 Nov 1902 in Los Angeles, CA.
47. Agusta Hardison (Wallace Libby2, Ivory1) was born on 29 May 1880.
Agusta married (name unknown).
Children from this marriage were:
+ 71 F i. Jane Lemmon Heaton .
Fourth Generation (Great Grandchildren)
69. Harland Brown Graham (Mayme Brown3, Ida M. Hardison2, Ivory1) was born on 6 Jan 1894 in Santa Paula, Ventura, CA and died on 26 Apr 1965 in Alhambra, CA, at age 71.
Harland married Alberta Marx , daughter of Charles David Marx and Harriet Elizabeth Grotecloss , on 28 Feb 1927 in Santa Clara Co., CA.
Children from this marriage were:
+ 72 M i. Fred Brown Graham was born on 8 Jul 1928 in Sacramento, CA and died on 8 Apr 2001 in San Francisco, CA, at age 72.
+ 73 M ii. Bruce Harland Graham was born on 13 Jul 1930 in Los Angeles, CA and died on 12 Oct 1961 in Sanford, Florida, at age 31.
70. Grayson Bard Graham (Mayme Brown3, Ida M. Hardison2, Ivory1) was born on 12 Nov 1902 in Los Angeles, CA.
Grayson married (name unknown).
Children from this marriage were:
74 M i. Camden Graham .
75 F ii. Evalyn Graham .
71. Jane Lemmon Heaton (Agusta Hardison3, Wallace Libby2, Ivory1).
Jane married (name unknown).
Children from this marriage were:
76 F i. Barbara Heaton Lipman .