By Rich Gotshall
A detective story that started with a few sentences in a church history ended in a tribute to the tragic life of a local hero.
A history of Grace United Methodist Church in Franklin mentioned that the church’s Civil War era minister, the Rev. Hiram B. Collins, was granted a leave of absence in 1864 to serve with the Christian Commission. While serving near the front, he contracted a disease and died in September 1864 at the age of 35.
Surely there was a larger story there, one worth retelling. And so the search began.
As a history and genealogy buff, I knew how to begin the search. I located some older church records that amplified some of the details. One reported: “The war spirit ran high. Patriotism was in the air”
Online searches turned up scant material beyond the fact that the Christian Commission was a private effort undertaken by American religious leaders to supply chaplains and aid workers for military units. It worked with the Sanitary Commission, which provided medical assistance to the troops.
I visited DePauw University in Greencastle, where the archives of Indiana Methodism are housed. I found more information, including other churches Collins served. But still the larger story eluded me.
The next stop was the genealogy library at the Johnson County Museum of History. There I was aided by volunteer librarian Andrea Glenn, whose talents and dogged determination unearthed the story.
Hiram Collins was born in Vincennes on May 4, 1829. His father died when he was a young child. His mother was described as a pious Presbyterian who imparted her knowledge of the Scriptures. He was well educated and served for several years as a teacher. In the 1850 U.S. Census for Knox County, he was listed as a teacher and living with a local family.
He became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in August 1858 and was licensed as a local preacher in the Southeastern Indiana Conference the following year. He served churches in Port Fulton (now part of Jeffersonville), College Corner and Liberty before coming to Franklin in 1862. He was paid a salary of $450 the first year and $500 the next year.
In spring 1864, he requested a leave of absence to join the Christian Commission as a battlefield chaplain. He was sent to Bull’s Gap in eastern Tennessee, where Union forces under Brig. Gen. Alvan Gillem were preparing to face Confederate units led by Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge. But before the battle that November, Collins became ill. He returned to Franklin to recuperate but died Sept. 4, 1864. He was only 35.
Sadly, his life was even more tragic.
Collins married twice before he entered the ministry, but in both cases his wife died in less than a year. He married a third time shortly after he entered the ministry, and he and his wife had a son. Sadly, in this third marriage it was he would die before his son was even born. His widow and infant son moved to Indianapolis.
A salute toCollins in the minutes of the Southeastern Indiana Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1865 read in part:
“He brought to the work of the ministry a well-developed intellect, a refined taste, superior literary attainments, an energetic character, and a heart in living sympathy with the interests of humanity and religion. He was a sound theologian, a good preacher, a faithful pastor, a successful minister of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So from a few sentences we now have a more complete portrait of the man, his work and his life. But without the dogged detective work by Andrea Glenn, he might have forever been relegated to obscurity.
Rich Gotshall is a retired journalist and Franklin resident. Send comments to [email protected].
