Newton Collins

His mother was an African-American slave; his father was their master, Silas Collins, who manumitted the young Collins at an early age and saw to it that he was educated and apprenticed in carpentry.[1] After his father's death in the 1840s, Collins moved to the area that is now Manor, Texas, where he was re-enslaved by a family named Parsons.[2] In 1854, he married Sarah Elizabeth Harrington, a fellow literate slave on the Parson estate, with whom he eventually had eight children.[3]

With the promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas on June 19, 1865, Collins again received his freedom.[2] He then developed a carpentry business constructing houses and churches around Travis County, Texas.[2] Over the succeeding decades his success in business enabled him to buy land in eastern Travis County, including some 506 acres (205 ha) of farmland in Pilot Knob, Texas, near what is now McKinney Falls State Park.[1]

As Collins and his adult children's families settled in the area, he built and furnished a one-room school and a Methodist church to serve the community, and he hired a teacher and preacher to operate them.[4] Collins died in Austin on September 7, 1903, and was buried in the Collins Cemetery on his family land in Pilot Knob.[2]

Newton Collins Elementary School in Easton Park, Austin, is named after Collins.[4] It is thought to be the first modern school in Central Texas named for a former slave.[1]