 With US Government support finalized through a bill signed by Abraham Lincoln and the British Columbia colonial assembly ratifying what had been agreed with London earlier, thus began the Russian American Telegraph (known in British Columbia as the Collins Overland Telegraph).In 1876 Collins moved to New York City, where he took residence in the St. Denis Hotel in Lower Manhattan, where he lived for nearly 25 year.He left a considerable fortune when he died there on January 18, 1900.