Samantha Drew Collins

Samantha Drew Collins (c.1809—1840) was the wife of Quentin Collins and the mother of Tad Collins. The daughter of a banker, she was the sister of Randall and Roxanne Drew. Thinking her husband and son were both dead, she became involved with Gerard Stiles.
Samantha married Quentin in 1825. In the late 1830s, Quentin had an affair with Joanna Mills. He asked for a divorce, but Samantha refused. Quentin broke off the relationship with Joanna, then began travelling by sea to try and forget about her. It was then that he met Gerard Stiles. On his last voyage, Quentin insisted on taking his son, Tad, against Samantha's wishes.
While Quentin was at sea with Tad, Samantha secretly met Joanna Mills. Joanna had begun to live in a fantasy world and was eventually committed to an insane asylum. After apparently committing suicide, Joanna's belongings were sent to Collinwood as Quentin's name was the only one she ever mentioned. Samantha had the items locked away.
When Julia Hoffman first arrived in 1840 via the stairway into time, Samantha had been told that her husband and son were both lost at sea by Gerard Stiles. Gerard then romanced Samantha as part of his plan to become the new master of Collinwood. The same day that Samantha married Gerard, Quentin reappeared, having merely been lost in South America without any means to return other than his charm. He left Tad, who was sick, in Boston. Samantha went immediately to Boston to be with Tad and decide which husband to keep.
Samantha's first choice was to stay with Gerard, but when Quentin told her he would not allow her to keep Tad, she stayed in Collinwood. She told Gerard she still loved him, but Gerard decided he would prefer to publicly remain friends with Quentin and turned Samantha away. Samantha realized Gerard was only after her money, but never reconciled with Quentin.
Samantha developed a scheme to drive Quentin away. She began to leave notes Joanna had written to him, begging him to meet her at the great oak tree. As the number of original notes began to dwindle, Samantha began to practice forging Joanna's handwriting. This became handy when she recognized that Quentin had hired Joanna's younger sister, who called herself Daphne Harridge. Realizing Quentin had transferred his affection from Joanna to Daphne, Samantha began also leaving notes "from Joanna" to "Sister".
When Quentin was tried for witchcraft, Samantha was the first witness to testify against him, as she had warned him over the years to avoid his study of the occult and firmly believed him to be a warlock. Desmond Collins, who was acting as Quentin's lawyer, tried unsuccessfully to prevent Samantha's testimony on the grounds that a woman could not testify against her husband, but the judges threw this argument out because that was true according to the Constitution of the State of Maine, but the rules regarding the witchcraft tribunal were following rules which pre-dated Maine's statehood. Her testimony was eventually dismissed as she could not prove that Quentin's involvement with witchcraft was actually directed maliciously towards anyone.
One night, Samantha left a note for Daphne indicating that since she was continuing to "make the same mistake I made," she would kill her. Daphne took the note to Gerard, who stayed in Daphne's bedroom with a dummy in the bed and caught Samantha trying to stab Daphne. Samantha insisted that she was only going to stab the bed to frighten Daphne away (1171) and had to convince Gerard that it was not she who had tried to strangle him the night before. Once she told him that she was the one who was forging letters from Joanna, Gerard tried to convince her that he still loved her and was forced by Quentin to act coldly to her. Samantha agreed to help Gerard, for Tad's sake, but did not believe he really loved her.
Samantha Collins died when Joanna Mills forced her to jump off of Widows' Hill. The spirit of Joanna Mills returned to Collinwood to get revenge on Samantha for killing her. She revealed that she was really dead and Samantha jumped off the cliff.
== Appearances ==
1110, 1112, 1115, 1116, 1117, 1119, 1120, 1121, 1127, 1128, 1129, 1132, 1143, 1145, 1147, 1156, 1160, 1161, 1165, 1166, 1170, 1171, 1173, 1174/1175, 1181, 1182, 1183, 1188, 1192, 1193
Drew, Samantha
Category:Deceased characters