East New Market
Property Reports
14 Main Street
Thomas E. Collins House (1874)
A tax assessment record for 1872 lists the property of Mary L. Smith as being a house and lot. The house was the Smith Cottage immediately south of this property. Other earlier records also do not list a house. A tax assessment entry for 1876 for the first time records the property of Mary L. Smith as a dwelling house on 1 1/2 acres and a dwelling house on 1/2 acre. The Thomas E. Collins house was on the 1/2 acre. The 1877 map shows a footprint of the house and describes this property as the estate of T.E. Collins. Thomas E. Collins was the son of Mary L. Smith. Thomas Collins died in 1877.
Thomas E Collins was born in East New Market in 1847, the son of Silas Collins and Mary Louisa Ennalls. He lived in the Smith Cottage in his childhood and was likely born there. Thomas E Collins married Sallie E Smith on 10 May 1866. Thomas E. Collins almost certainly built the house since the 1877 map describes the house as the estate of T.E. Collins.
Thomas E. Collins and his wife, Sallie, lived at the Smith Cottage and had three children, Edgar S (b. Jul 1870), Nellie V. (b. Oct 1871), and Lillian Ennals (b. 3 Feb 1875). Thomas E. died at the age of 29 in the early part of 1876. Thus the 1877 map shows this property as the Estate of T. E. Collins. The Thomas E. Collins House was refurbished in 2005.
Chuck Hurley and Mary Wright Carr report that this house was involved in a fire in the mid-1900s and partially reconstructed. Chuck Hurley examined the house after the fire and found evidence of peg construction.