One hundred and ninety-one persons registered at the annual Collett-McKay reunion Saturday at the picnic grounds near New Burlington. Once again the weather man smiled on the meeting and the day was without rain, although there was high wind much of the time, members reported. The picnic never has been completely rained out, a most unusual circumstance in 90 years of meeting.

Of interest to all those present was a table full of old pictures and mementoes of other days. The oldest picture was one of the group taken at the 1885 picnic.

Those attending from out of state were Mrs. William Vandenberg and children of Milan, Mich.; Dr. and Mrs. Wendell G. Farr of Oskaloosa, Ia.; Mr. and Mrs. John Lewis and family of Tulsa, Okla.

Representatives were present from all parts of Ohio and a large group from this vicinity, where the two families were pioneer settlers.

WILMINGTON. July 23.--Ninety years ago when 111 members of the Collett and McKay families met for a family picnic in a beautiful sugar-maple grove in Clinton County, they had no idea they were establishing a custom that almost a century later would spread throughout the country.

The Colletts and McKays, descendants of two of the oldest pioneer families in this locality, know of no other family reunion that antedates theirs. Every year since 1866 the members of the two families have met on the second Saturday in August for what they prefer to call their annual picnic, instead of a reunion, as throughout the years the informality of a picnic has prevailed.

There has never been a set program outside of the meeting, eating and visiting, never any speeches, never any election of officers, never any discussion of when and where to meet the next year, only the happy exchange of news as members of the families visit in congenial groups and exchange bits of information of interest only to those of kith and kin.

THROUGOUT THE 90 years the picnic has been held in the grove where there is no shelter outside of the wide spreading limbs of the big maple trees, but so benign has been the favor of the weather man that there never has been a time when the families have not been able to enjoy the picnic dinner together. The picnic has never been rained out.

The beautiful, sunny weather that usually smiles upon the occasion has become traditional in the community and "Collett and McKay picnic weather" means the finest.

The picnic grounds consist of four acres of sugar maplewood land which the families have dedicated solely to picnic purposes. It is a part of a large tract of sugar maplewood land owned by the Collett family and adjoining a tract of land owned by the McKay family. It is on what is known as Gurneyville road, about eight miles northwest of here.

The boards from the original fencing of the woodland, are of walnut and are more than a hundred years old. They are still in excellent state of preservation. Climbing the old rail fence presents fascinating adventure for the kiddies attending the family picnics.

(It appears that part of the paragraph above was missing. I made a guess as to how it began when I included the words 'The boards' MLM)

THE COLLETT FAMILY traces its descent from Stephen Collett whose father was expelled from France at the time of the Huguenot expulsion in 1660.

The Colletts came to Ohio in 1812 and settled on a large tract of land in Clinton county where the first home was built. About two thousand acres of the original tract still remain in the possession of members of the family.

Robert McKay, the ancestor of the McKays, came from Scotland in about the year 1690 and was one of the first settlers in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. According to well founded family tradition, Moses McKay and his wife, Abigail Shinn McKay, came up to Ohio from Virginia in 1818.

In the spacious parlor of the McKay home in 1823 Sarah McKay became the bride of Jonathan Collett. In the years between 1823 and 1830 there were three more marriages between McKays and Colletts, making a fourfold family tie. The descendants of these four marriages were the originators of the family picnic.

THE FIRST PICNIC had the smallest attendance on record, 110 persons. The largest attendance was in 1888 when 542 members of the families and invited guests signed the register. The average attendance is between two and three hundred people.

On a shelf, attached to the lobe of a big old tree, is the large family register book where every one attending the picnic is morally obligated to sign his or her name and address. These books have been carefully kept from year to year and furnish ready reference to the addresses of relatives throughout the country.

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