Reverend Isaac F. Collins was a Methodist Episcopal missionary in the Indian Territory of Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska.

While in Texas he was associated with his brother, Rev. Walter D. Collins. In 1858-59 he was in Atchison County, KS, where he built a church on Parallel Street, between 5th and 6th. He died while on assignment in Oskaloosa, Jefferson, KS where he is believed to be buried.

He married Mary A. Wolf on 22 Dec 1843. Mary was a Native American, daughter of a Cherokee Indian chief. They had no known children.

In the book "Rose Neighborhood [NY] Sketches" it is reported that Isaac and Mary came back to civilization where Isaac preached in MI for several years, then returned south where his wife died. Marrying again, Isaac went back to [Indian Territory] Nebraska, and died soon after.

A Methodist church account states, "Little is known of this modest but faithful pioneer, excepting that he was a man of some culture, resigning the principalship of a seminary so he might take his place on the frontier and give two to three years of his life to work the planting of the church in the new soil of Nebraska, and was willing to serve, suffer, and sacrifice for the Master."

Isaac's memorial in the Collins Family Cemetery is a cenotaph, but there are no remains of a headstone. It may be buried in the sands of time. His place of burial is unknown, but perhaps Okaloosa Methodist Cemetey in Oskaloosa KS.
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Isaac Foster Collins wrote his will on 16 Apr 1862 and died ten days later. This short time frame suggests he may have died of tuberculosis, but this is pure speculation. Isaac left his estate to his wife, nee Aldura Corah Amsbary, and their daughter Mahatta (affectionately called "Mahattie") who was born in August 1859. Isaac's signature on his will is quite scrawled which may indicate his delicate condition.

Mahatta may have been a religious name stemming from the Manhattan Declaration...A call of Christian Conscience... "and flesh of my own flesh, and she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man."
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Excerpts from "History of Methodism in NE:" Of Isaac Collins little can be ascertained. During his pastorate at Omaha he married a daughter of Brother [Nelson] Amsbary, the father of Rev. W[illiam] A. Amsbary. Another brother [Daniel] Webster Amsbary is still living and furnishes the following brief facts concerning this cultured and devoted man who laid the foundations of Omaha Methodism. He [Webster] says the first time he saw Isaac Collins was when, in 1855, he [Isaac] rode up to his [Webster Amsbary's] father's [Nelson Amsbury's] log cabin on a pony and announced himself as having been sent to the Omaha Circuit. This [circuit] extended north and west indefinitely. [Webster] said Collins was born in Michigan and was educated at Ann Arbor. While a brother Judson went to China as a missionary, Isaac went to Arkansas, and there, after preaching some time, became a principal of a seminary at Tellequia in the Indian Territory. It was from this field that [Isaac] came in response to Dr. Goode's call for workers in Kansas and Nebraska and was assigned to Omaha. In 1858 [Isaac] left the Nebraska portion and served some pastorates in Kansas.

Isaac Collins was without a church to preach in or a house to live in. He soon found a place in which to live, being unmarried.... There were six members in the first class... possibly Mr. and Mrs. Amsbary, Mr. and Mrs. Collins, Mrs. Crowell, Mrs. McCoy, and Mrs. Harris.

Of Mr. and Mrs. Amsbary little is known except [besides] giving their daughter [Aldura Corah Amsbary] to be the wife of Isaac Collins, they gave a son W. A. Amsbary to the Methodist ministry....

Of "Mahattie" - The year 1870 finds her in Lincoln NE with an uncle Daniel W. Amsbury ( Daniel "Webster" Amsbary) and her grandmother Mahala (Webster) Amsbary. It does appear that Mahatta's mother, Aldura, died between 1862 and 1870. Mahatta married at age 20 John J. Briggs and had a family.
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In 1860 Palmyra, Douglas, KS Isaac reported he owned no property and valued his personal estate at $200. Yet in the inventory of his estate in 1862 he owned Lot 3 in Block 118 In Florence NE, Lot 2 in Block 116 in Omaha NE, and the East 1/2 of Sec 28 Town 4 of Range 20 in Doniphan KS. Plus one horse valued at $65, and one buggy valued at $10. Aldura swore that this was a true and perfect inventory of his estate, except for the articles of household furniture that she kept. Then in 1870 when Mahatta was 11 and living with D. W. Amsbary and her grandmother Mahala Amsbary in Lincoln NE it was reported that she had real estate valued at $15,500 and a personal estate of $2,300.
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The Methodist Episcopal church minutes of the Kansas Conference for the year 1863 gives a chronology of Isaac's service to the church (the minutes are available online). The minutes also describe the church's opinion of him, which follows:

"He was decidedly a true friend, an honest man, and exemplary Christian, a good preacher, and an uncompromising Methodist. He was dignified in appearance, humble in spirit, and very neat in his person. He leaves a wife [nee Aldura Corah Amsbury], one child [Mahatta], and many friends to mourn his absence; but while they mourn they need to have no gloom - their loss is his gain."