Collin McKinney

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Collin McKinney (April 17, 1766 – September 9, 1861) was a land surveyor, merchant, politician, and lay preacher. He is best known as an important figure in the Texas Revolution as being one of the five individuals who drafted the Texas Declaration of Independence and the oldest person to sign it.

McKinney was born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, the second of ten children born to Daniel and Massie (Blatchey) McKinney. The family moved to Virginia in the 1770s, and while Daniel fought in the Revolutionary War McKinney supported the family; thus, he had no formal schooling. After the war the family moved to an outpost in what is now Lincoln County, Kentucky.

McKinney married twice in his lifetime, first to Annie (Amy) Moore in 1792 (with whom he had four children before her death) and then in 1805 to Elizabeth Leek, with whom he had six more children.

From 1818 to 1821 McKinney managed the Tennessee estates of Senator George W. Campbell who was serving as minister to Russia at the time. He also opened a trading post before giving it up and returning to Kentucky. Later, McKinney and many of his relatives moved to Hempstead County, Arkansas where he would be elected as justice of the peace.

In 1826 McKinney became a friend of Benjamin Milam, who was recruiting settlers for the Red River Colony in Northeast Texas, an area claimed by the United States as part of Miller County, Arkansas as well as by Mexico.

In 1836, he was one of five delegates from the Red River Colony to the Convention of 1836 which called for Texas to declare its independence from Mexico. He was one of five appointed to draft the Texas Declaration of Independence, and at age 70 he was the oldest to sign it. He would later be a member of the committee that drafted the Constitution of the Republic of Texas and would also serve as a delegate from Red River County to the First, Second, and Fourth Congresses of the Republic.

In 1840 he would move one last time, to the portion of Fannin County that would later be formed into Grayson County and Collin County. Both Collin County and McKinney, its county seat, were named in his honor.

McKinney is credited with insisting that, as new counties were created in North Texas, the boundaries should be straight; most counties in North Texas are comprised in a generally square shape.

McKinney died in his home on September 9, 1861 and is buried in Van Alstyne, Texas.