My great-great-grandfather invented the Tom Collins

This was a story I was told by my grandfather a while ago and I can’t prove its veracity.

My great-great-grandfather was a construction worker in New York City who migrated there from Italy around 1870. He and his coworkers would go to the bar every so often after work for a few drinks. Apparently on one of these occasions, my grandfather ordered a lemon gin and carbonated water and mixed them together. A bunch of people started asking what it was and ordering it as well so the bartender called it Tom Collins after him and the idea spread from there.

From what I know, the time and the place line up. All the stories I can find about the Tom Collins take place in NYC and the story would have also occurred before it was first written about in “The Bartender’s Guide” by Jerry Thomas in 1876.