Moses Collins Jr. (1781 SC-1855 LA), fourth child of Moses Collins and Hannah Willis of South Carolina and Mississippi, came to Mississippi Territory via military passport with his wife Elizabeth Zachary, children, siblings and their families, other relatives, and entourage in 1811-1812. Elizabeth’s brother Benjamin Zachary Jr. and family also moved with them; they later settled in Louisiana.

Moses Jr. is first noted as a Justice of the Peace in 1812-1813 in Jackson County MS. He served as a Captain in the 13th Mississippi Militia in the War of 1812, and fought in the Battle of New Orleans. By 1820, he and his family, with his widowed mother, had moved to south central Hinds County, Mississippi, where they settled between Palestine and Lebanon.

In 1827, his first wife Elizabeth died in childbirth with their 12th child, and his re-married to widow Matilda Prestridge May. They had two daughters, and moved to Jasper County, Mississippi, in 1835, then to De Soto Parish, Louisiana in 1850, where Moses Jr. died in 1855. He is buried in his family cemetery there. Elizabeth Zachary Collins is buried in the Collins family cemetery in south central Hinds County with her mother-in-law Hannah Willis Collins.

Moses Jr. had extensive farming interests in Pike, Hinds, and Jasper Counties, and in De Soto Parish. He was the largest slaveholder in Jasper County, and had a 30-page probate in the De Soto Parish court records.

His children with Elizabeth Zachary, were Joseph (b. 1804, m. Louise Pierce); Sarah (b. 1803); Moses Zachary (b. 1807, m. Sarah Ann Alford); John Hampton (b. 1809, m. Catherine Ann Catchings), Burton (b. 1810, m. Lucy Ann Stovall); Seaborn J. (b. 1812, twin of Thomas); Thomas J. (b. 1812, twin of Seaborn, m. Mary Ann); Elizabeth (b. 1818, m. James A. Chapman); Lemuel P. (b. 1817, m. Ann Elizabeth Morris, then Phoebe Jane White); James Madison (m. 1818, never married); Rebecca (b. 1823, m. Philip Pitman Williams), and Nancy Ann (b. 1827, m. Elisha Bruce Adams). Moses had with his second wife Matilda, daughters, Jane Matilda (b. 1833 m. Jasper McMillan), and Pamela (b. 1835, m. Thomas B. Weaver, then William Barnes). Although several of the oldest children remained in Mississippi, most moved to Louisiana with their father.

First Family descendant member:
Mary Collins Landin