Collins, John

Collins, John a Methodist Episcopal minister, was born in New Jersey in 1769. In 1803 he removed to Ohio, and entered the itinerant ministry in 1807. He was one of the pioneers of Methodism in the West. In 1804, while yet a local preacher, he preached the first Methodist sermon in Cincinnati to a dozen persons, in an upper room. With a brief interval, he labored as an itinerant until 1836, when he became superannuated. He died Aug. 21,1845. He was an able and faithful preacher, often impressively eloquent, and eminently successful as an evangelist. Revivals of religion followed his footsteps everywhere. An instructive sketch of his Life, from the pen of Justice M'Lean, was published in 1850 (Cincinnati. 18mo). — Minutes of Conferences, 3. 650; Methodist Quarterly Review, 1850, p. 324.