Isaac Collins

Master printer Isaac Collins (1746-1817) spent most of his working life in central New Jersey, much of it in downtown Trenton. He published and sold books, religious tracts and broadsides, but is best known as the founder, owner, publisher and editor of the New-Jersey Gazette, the state's first regular newspaper. Collins also issued two editions of a well-known quarto Bible, the first of which was printed in Trenton in 1791. Collins moved his printing and publishing business to downtown Trenton in 1778 and continued there until 1796 when he and his family relocated to New York City. A Quaker, he believed strongly in the importance of education in community progress and was one of the five founding trustees of the Trenton Academy, established in 1781-82.

[credit: engraving of portrait by John Wesley Jarvis, 1806; original oil portrait reproduced in Isaac Collins: A Quaker Printer in 18th Century America, by Richard E. Hixson, 1968]