Enos Collins
Enos Collins | |
---|---|
Born | Liverpool, Nova Scotia | 5 September 1774
Died | 18 November 1871 Halifax, Nova Scotia | (aged 97)
Enos Collins (5 September 1774 – 18 November 1871) was a merchant, shipowner, banker and privateer from
Privateers
He was born to a merchant family in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. Trading and a few privateering voyages to the West Indies on the privateer ship Charles Mary Wentworth in his youth gave him experience to own and manage his own fleet of vessels. While best known for his ownership of the privateer schooner Liverpool Packet, Collins's main fortune was made in shrewd wartime trading and careful peacetime investments.
He moved to Halifax during the War of 1812 and married into the Halifax elite. When the merchant Charles Prescott retired in 1811, Collins purchased Prescott's wharf and warehouse on Upper Water Street in Halifax, later expanding it by purchase and foreclosure to become the headquarters of his commercial empire.
Halifax Banking Company
With several other merchants including
Retirement
Collins retired from active business and politics in 1840, but continued to manage his large investments and back the Conservative party in Nova Scotia. In 1864, at the age of 90, he came roaring out of retirement to oppose
Legacy
However, Collins' bank and warehouse buildings on the Halifax waterfront were rescued from demolition by Nova Scotia's Heritage Trust in the 1970s and form the most distinct part of a waterfront revitalization known as Historic Properties. His importance is commemorated on a national historic site plaque mounted on his bank building at Historic Properties.
Collins's reputation as a successful, crafty and sometimes harsh businessman inspired legends which fueled a number of fictional depictions. These include the sinister character "Jonathon Bauer" depicted in Alice Jones' 1903 novel Bubbles We Buy, later retitled A Privateer's Fortune,
References
- ^ Conlin, Dan, "Enos Collins", Oxford Companion to Canadian History, (2004), p.274
- ^ Barker, Diane M.; Sutherland, D. A. (1972). "Collins, Enos". In Hayne, David (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. X (1871–1880) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
- ^ Dan Conlin, "Introduction", A Privateer's Fortune, 2002 reprint of Bubbles We Buy(Halifax: Formac Publishing) p. 8
- ^ Thomas Raddall, Prides Fancy (Garden City, New York: Doubleday) 1948
- Diary of Simeon Perkins.
- Excessive Expectations (1998) Julian Gwyn.