Isaac J. Collier

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each opens its own page, with its events date by date.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 10 dated events in the chronology →

1. about 1830-1832 Orange Methodist Church is organized at the Davis School House Alexander Gattis and neighbors organized Orange Methodist Church in the Davis School House near the Wash Fowler home. Its early records are lost: Lefler and Wager give about 1830, and the church's own tradition 1832. By August 1833 the Chapel Hill Harbinger was advertising a camp meeting to begin October 4 at Orange Church, two miles north of Chapel Hill on the Hillsborough road. The congregation had trustees by October 1836, when Gattis and Thomas King deeded them land, and built its first church about 1838. People: Jones Watson, Isaac J. Collier Place: Davis School House · Also named: Alexander Gattis, James Gattis, William Gattis, Thomas King · Also mentions: Orange Methodist ChurchSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 297 · Also: The Harbinger (Chapel Hill), August 27, 1833, p. 3
2. by September 10, 1833 Isaac J. Collier and Jones Watson open a cabinetmaking business The two men started making furniture on Franklin Street in 1833. After the partnership dissolved in the later 1830s, Collier kept the business going. People: Jones Watson, Isaac J. Collier Place: Collier & Watson cabinet shop, Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (site unknown) · Also mentions: Franklin StreetSearch the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 63 · Also: The Harbinger (Chapel Hill), September 10, 1833, p. 3
3. between 1836 and 1838 Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt go into partnership in a Chapel Hill cabinet shop Isaac J. Collier went into partnership with Kendall B. Waitt, a Chapel Hill artisan from Massachusetts, in a cabinet shop in the later 1830s, after his partnership with Jones Watson. The two worked together for years, later as building contractors. Their firm, Collier & Wait, was dissolved by mutual consent on March 12, 1847, as a notice signed by both and dated November 26, 1847 announced. People: Kendall B. Waitt, Jones Watson Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · North Carolina Architects and Builders, NC State University Libraries: Collier, Isaac J. (b. ca. 1810) · Also: Hillsborough Recorder, December 2, 1847, p. 3
4. March 12, 1836 Isaac J. Collier and Jones Watson dissolve their Chapel Hill partnership The Chapel Hill firm of Collier & Watson was dissolved by mutual consent. Debts owed to the firm were to be paid to I. J. Collier, who also took charge of settling claims against it. People: Jones Watson Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Columbian Repository (Chapel Hill), July 28, 1836, p. 4
5. 1844–1848 Dabney Cosby takes the masonry subcontract for the lengthening of Old East and Old West Chapel Hill contractors Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt subcontracted the masonry of the university additions to Cosby, who put enslaved workmen including the brothers Osborne and Albert on the job. Cosby and the architect Alexander Jackson Davis quarrelled over the drawings, and president David L. Swain asked the Hillsborough builder John Berry to look at the brickwork, which Berry reported was defective. People: Dabney Cosby, John Berry, David L. Swain, Alexander Jackson Davis, Isaac J. Collier, Kendall B. Waitt Place: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · Also named: Albert, OsborneIn the index: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · North Carolina Architects and Builders, NC State University Libraries: Cosby, Dabney (1779-1862)
6. 1844 Isaac J. Collier serves as contractor for the Chapel of the Cross Chapel Hill woodworker and builder Isaac J. Collier was the contractor for the Episcopal Chapel of the Cross on East Franklin Street, built to a design by the Philadelphia architect Thomas U. Walter. Place: Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill · Also named: Thomas U. Walter · Also mentions: East Franklin StreetSearch the index · North Carolina Architects and Builders, NC State University Libraries: Collier, Isaac J. (b. ca. 1810)
7. December 23, 1844 The university awards Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt the contract for the Old East and Old West additions On December 23, 1844, Collier and Waitt won the contract to build A. J. Davis's three-story brick additions to Old East and Old West, at $9,360. They subcontracted the masonry to Dabney Cosby; the next day trustee secretary Charles Manly asked that they hire his enslaved carpenters. People: Alexander Jackson Davis, Dabney Cosby, Charles Manly, Kendall B. Waitt Place: University of North Carolina, Chapel HillSearch the index · North Carolina Architects and Builders, NC State University Libraries: Collier, Isaac J. (b. ca. 1810)
8. 1848 Literary societies move into new halls in the enlarged Old East and Old West The northward extensions of Old East and Old West, designed by A. J. Davis and built by Isaac J. Collier and Kendall B. Waitt for $9,360, were finished in 1848 with debating halls and library alcoves for the two societies. At the Dialectic opening James Mebane, the society's first president in 1795, sat beside the student president, Kemp P. Battle. People: Samuel (Samuel Field) Phillips, Alexander Jackson Davis, Kemp Plummer Battle, Isaac J. Collier, Samuel Field Phillips, James Mebane, Kendall B. Waitt Place: Old EastSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 513
9. 1851 Isaac J. Collier finishes a house for Elizabeth Nunn In a letter of September 24, 1851, Lucy Battle told her husband that Isaac J. Collier was finishing a house for Elizabeth Nunn, widow of a Chapel Hill innkeeper. Collier probably built other modest frame houses in the village as well. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Elizabeth Nunn, Lucy Martin BattleSearch the index · North Carolina Architects and Builders, NC State University Libraries: Collier, Isaac J. (b. ca. 1810)
10. between 1853 and 1858 Isaac Collier builds an I-house on East Rosemary Street Isaac Collier is thought to have built the two-story I-house at 315 East Rosemary Street between 1853 and 1858. The novelist Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, later lived there. People: Betty Smith, Isaac J. Collier Place: 315 East Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill · Also named: Isaac CollierSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: Chapel Hill Historic Sites Survey: Final Report (1992), p. 51