Robert Joseph Collier

Robert Joseph Collier (June 17, 1876 – November 9, 1918) was the son of Peter Fenelon Collier, and a principal in the publishing company P. F. Collier & Son.

Upon his father's death, he became head of the company, and for a time was editor of Collier's Weekly. He was president of the Aero Club of America.

Biography

He was born in New York City on June 17, 1876 to Peter Fenelon Collier.

He attended Georgetown University and graduated in 1894, winning the Merrick Medal from the Philodemic Society that same year. He then spent two years at Harvard University and Oxford University.

He married Sara Steward Van Alen (1881-1963), a daughter of James John Van Alen and Emily Astor as well as a granddaughter of William Backhouse Astor, Jr. and Caroline Webster Schermerhorn. They married on 26 July 1902 in Newport, Rhode Island. They had no children. Prior to his marriage he dated the showgirl Evelyn Nesbit, amongst others.

Collier, a friend of Orville Wright and a director of the Wright Company, purchased a Wright Model B aircraft in 1911 and loaned it to the United States Army, which assigned it to Lieutenant Benjamin Foulois. Foulois and civilian Wright Company pilot Phil Parmalee used this aircraft to fly along the Rio Grande border of Mexico and the United States in one of the first scouting duties by the U.S. Army using an airplane. Foulois and Parmalee later crashed the airplane into the Rio Grande but escaped from drowning.

In 1911 he commissioned the Collier Trophy devoted to achievements in aviation.

In 1914 he developed uremic poisoning from kidney failure at his summer home in Raquette Lake, New York.

He died of a heart attack at his dinner table, on November 8, 1918 a few hours after arriving home from France.[4] His estate was valued at just $2,194.

Legacy

In his will he made three friends, Peter Finley Dunne, Harry Payne Whitney, and Francis Patrick Garvan, the residuary legatees of his estate and, thus, his publishing company. Collier evidently believed that his wife had sufficient money of her own. In fact, she did not and would receive only a few thousand dollar from her husband's will. Dunne, Whitney, and Garvan then renounced the bequest so that Mrs. Collier could benefit fully. In addition to selling the troubled publishing company, his wife donated their home in Wickatunk, New Jersey to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd who made it a home for troubled young women. This was later opened up to children of all ages and what has become known as Collier High School is still open today.