THOMAS BURKITT COLLIER 



Thomas Burkitt Collier, for twenty-one years the 

 Treasurer of The Cincinnati Society of Natural History, 

 was born at Athens, Ohio, September 16, 1848, and died at 

 Cincinnati, May 20, 1915. His father, Daniel Collier, 

 removed from Athens to Cincinnati shortly before the 

 Civil War, and for a generation was prominent in steamboat 

 and insurance circles, and was the second Mayor of Avondale, 

 a village since annexed to Cincinnati. The son was educated 

 in the public schools of Cincinnati, a brief period spent in 

 a local military academy, and at Ohio Wesleyan College 

 at Delaware, Ohio, but did not graduate. After leaving 

 school, he engaged in mercantile pursuits in Cincinnati. 

 During a large part of .his business life, he was the head of 

 the firm of Collier, Budd & Co., coal dealers, operating an 

 elevator in Cincinnati, and handling with their fleet of 

 steamboats and barges the output of mines along the upper 

 Kanawha River. 



In 1879, he was married to Miss Mary Ella Shaddinger, 

 of Cincinnati, who, with two sons, Lester Dupont Collier 

 and Ashton Collier, survives him. 



As early as 1884, he took up photography as a pastime, 

 and for the remainder of his life was a most enthusiastic 

 devotee of the art. He supplied himself at his home with 

 a complete equipment of apparatus and materials and 

 turned off a great deal of work that would have been a 

 credit to any professional studio in the land. He was 

 lavishly generous as a photographer toward the schools, 

 public and private, giving them every commencement 

 season much of his time and skill gratuitously. He became 

 expert in photographing interiors and large outdoor groups. 

 Naturally he found his way early into the Cincinnati Camera 

 Club, the organization of the amateur photographers of the 



