This is Your Family

The Perkins

 

Clella Allaire Cook – Carl Richard Miller

(See Miller Family)

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Merle Warden Cook – Vera Myrtle Parmater

(See Parmater Family)

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Jonathan Llewellyn Cook – Cora Inez Blair

(See Cook Family)

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William Isaac Blair – Ladora C. Perkins

(See Blair Family)

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Hiram H. Perkins – Angeline Call

(See Call Family)

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Enoch Perkins – Clarissa Barnes

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Phineas Perkins Jr. – Phebe Hall

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Phineas Perkins – Susanna Bradley

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John Perkins – Elizabeth Hayward

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John Perkins – Mary

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Edward Perkins – Elizabeth Butcher

 

            Edward Perkins was born in about 1625 in Hillmorton, Warwick, England.  He was the son of Thomas and Mary (Bates) Perkins.[1]  Hillmorton was a village that has now been absorbed by the City of Rugby.  It is located between Leicester, Coventry and Northampton.  Rugby is known for many things, including the invention of British football in 1824 and the jet engine in 1937.  The Rugby School is considered one of the most prestigious public schools.  Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and authors Lewis Carroll and Muslim Salman Rushdie were among its distinguished alumnae.[2]

 

There are no records when Edward moved to New Haven, Connecticut, but he took the oath of fidelity there on October 18, 1648.[3]  This was ten years after the town was first settled, so he was not one of the founders like the Crane and Treat families. (See This Is Your Family – The Cranes and Treats).[4]  He married Elizabeth Butcher on March 20, 1649.  He died in 1688 in New Haven. [5]

 

            He owned several parcels of land in the New Haven area.  He was involved in recorded legal issue, when the hogs of his neighbor, Mr. Stendman, broke through a fence and ruined Edward’s crop of peas.  He was only able to harvest two bushels from his two-acre crop.  The judges on the case determined the loss to be at least six bushels of peas and Mr. Steadman was responsible for recompensing Edward for the damages.[6] 

 

            The Perkins family was members of the New Haven church.  Unlike the Puritan churches of Massachusetts, it was not a requirement of the New Haven colonists to belong to the church.  His seat was in front of the soldiers’ row.[7]

 

            On February 26, 1679, he deeded to his oldest son, John, 22 acres of land west of town.  Later in 1687, he decided to divest the rest of his property as he was nearing the end of his life.  He gave his second son, Jonathan, one of his houses along with several pieces of property.  His third son, David, was given four acres on the outskirts of town.  It is not known when their dad passed away but it is assumed to be soon after 1688.[8]   

 

John Perkins was born on August 18, 1651 in New Haven to Edward and Elizabeth Perkins.  He married his first wife, Mary, on May 16, 1677.  They had seven sons and one daughter.  He married his second wife, Rebecca Thompson Daniel in 1703, but had no children with her.  She was the widow of Thomas Daniel. 

 

John was a farmer like his father.  He sold the property that he obtained from his father the day after Christmas in 1681.  He followed his father’s example by deeding land to his sons.  In 1701, he gave his oldest son 21 acres of land.  Four years later gave his second son some land as well.  He proceeded to give his other sons property during his lifetime.[9]

 

John Perkins was born on June 3, 1678 in New Haven.  He was the oldest son of Edward and Elizabeth Perkins. His first wife was Sarah Warner.  They had three children before she passed away in 1706, after five years of marriage.  In 1707, he married Elizabeth Hayward, daughter of Thomas Hayward. They had five sons and six daughters.  He was farmer like his ancestors.[10]

 

 Not much more is known of John and Elizabeth Perkins nor Thomas Hayward, but Thomas was one of the first settlers of Enfield, Connecticut.[11]  He was not prominent in the community but the town was known for the most famous sermon in colonial America.  On July 8, 1741, Jonathan Edwards of Northampton, Massachusetts preached his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God,” at the Enfield Second Meeting House.  The colonists had lost their spiritual drive and his hellfire-and-brimstone message ministered the fear of God to those who heard him preach.  The next thirty years was known in history as the Second Awakening and was responsible for many people returning to the Lord.  The revival ended with the American Revolution.[12]  Enfield had also one of only nineteen Shaker communities but there is no evidence that any of our ancestors was a Shaker.[13]

 

John Perkins and his children did enter into contracts, known as indentures, with several people.[14]  The contract was a written agreement to work or serve for someone.  Indentures usually assisted recent immigrants in paying off the costs for their boat trip to the colony from England.  In other cases, a person signed an indenture to learn a trade.

 

Phineas Perkins, Senior, was born on February 7, 1719-20, in New Haven.  He was the seventh son of John Perkins and his second wife, Elizabeth.  He married Susanna Bradley, daughter of John and Sarah (Holt) Bradley of New Haven.  They had four sons and three daughters.  At some point, the family moved to Hartland located in northwest Connecticut, near the Massachusetts border.[15]  They did locate there before the town was incorporated in 1761 and the first church was constructed in 1770.  Phineas passed away before 1779.  Susanna died in about 1778.[16]

 

Phineas Perkins, Junior, was born on September 4, 1750 in New Haven and moved with his family to Hartland, Connecticut.[17]  He married Phebe Hall on May 4, 1779 in Hartland.[18]  It is presumed that he was a farmer.  There are no records of the number of sons and daughters or when Phineas passed away.  Phebe passed away on April 21, 1787 in Hartland.[19]

 

Enoch Perkins was born in Hartland.  There is no record of when he was born.  He was the son of Phineas and Phebe Hall.  He along with a possible brother or cousin named Seth Perkins moved to Ohio in 1807.  Enoch married Clarissa Barnes in Fowler Township in Trumball County on June 8, 1808.  Theirs was the second marriage in the county.[20]  I was told that Clarissa was born on June 8, 1784 in Rupert, Vermont, but I have not been able to find the source.[21]  The 1850 and 1860 Census does confirm that she was born in 1784 or 1785 in Vermont.[22]

 

When the original thirteen colonies were organized, the western boundaries of the colonies were not drawn.  Instead, their borders continued straight onto the west infinitum.  For instance, Connecticut’s claim would have included parts of the present states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and theoretically all the way to California.  After the Revolution, the settlement of the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains became not only possible but necessary to accommodate the large numbers of immigrants.

 

One of the first tasks facing our new nation was to resolve many border conflicts and one by one, the states began to give up their right to these western lands.  Connecticut was one of the last states to relinquish its claims.  In 1786, the State gave up all claims in New York and Pennsylvania but retained a portion of what is today northeastern Ohio.  This became known as the Connecticut Western Reserve. 

 

The purpose for this Reserve was to help its residents who had suffered great losses during the Revolution.  The British had torched many properties in Connecticut.  Therefore, the tracts of land became known as the “fire lands”.   It would be a full thirty years before the area was safe enough for settlements because the Native Americans aggressively resisted the western movement of the colonists.  The Native Americans were finally subdued in 1795 with the battle of ______________.  Ironically, most people who had lost so much in the war never benefited by obtaining land in the Reserve.

 

Instead in 1795, the state of Connecticut sold its right to the Western Reserve to a group of forty-eight investors, including Enoch Perkins.  The sales price was $1.2 million for the four million acre tract.  The area included in the Reserve includes such modern-day cities as Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown, Ohio. 

 

These investors signed the Articles of Association and Agreement Constituting the Connecticut Land Company.[23] They paid for the survey work and hired agents to sell the properties, but not all of them ever intended to actually live in the territory.[24]  In fact, it was a number of years before Enoch moved there.

 

As part of his investment in the Company, Enoch had joined together with two other investors, Roger Newberry and Jonathan Brace, to pay $38,000 for their portion of land in what is now Trumball County.  I have not been able to track down how many acres the trio received for their share.  It wasn’t until 1807 that Enoch with Seth Perkins actually moved to possess his claim to his property.[25]

 

Seth settled in Fowler Township where he married his wife, Lucy Thompson, in 1804.  They lived there until 1818 when they moved to Kinsman, Ohio.[26]  Seth and Enoch Perkins settled one mile west of Tyrrell Hill.  Ebenezer Barnes built the millstones for Daniel Meeker’s sawmill in the woods ½ mile west of Tyrrell Hill.  This would reinforce the premise that Ebenezer Barnes was either a brother or cousin of Enoch Perkins’ wife, Clarissa.  It is believed that Clarissa’s father was Lemuel Barnes and there is a Lemuel Barnes was one of the first five settlers of Fowler Township.[27]

 

Enoch was a private in Captain Daniel Abel’s Company during the War of 1812, along with Privates Seth Perkins and Ebenezer Barnes.  Enoch’s company only served from August 24-27. 1812.  All three then joined Captain Jedediah Burnham’s Company and served until February 28, 1813.[28]

 

Enoch was a farmer in Vienna Township, Trumball County where he lived until he passed away in August 1859.[29]  After her husband died, Clarissa lived with her son, Ansel, and his family.  She passed away after 1860.[30] 

 

Hiram Perkins was born in January 1813 probably in Trumball County, Ohio.  He married Angeline Call on March 10, 1836 in Geauga County, Ohio.  She was born in about 1820 and was the daughter of Jonathan and Ruth (Lowell) Call.  Together they had four sons and three daughters.  He was a farmer near Mentor.  Two of his sons, Orlando and Francis, were sailors.[31] 

Mentor, Ohio was the hometown of President James Garfield.

 

They lived in Ohio until about 1869, when Hiram and Angeline and their two youngest sons moved to Saugatuck, Michigan on the shores of Lake Michigan.  They lived next to their daughter and son-in-law, Ladora and William Isaac Blair.[32]  He passed away there on December 27, 1879.  His wife survived him and the date is not known. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Saugatuck.

 

 

            Ladora Perkins was born on June 19, 1842 in Mentor, Lake County, Ohio.  She was the fourth oldest child of Hiram and Angeline Perkins.  She married William Isaac Blair in Painesville, Ohio on November 13, 1860.[33]  She passed away on September 2, 1900 in Keeler, Van Buren County, Michigan.  (See the Blair Family for the rest of her life history.)


 

 

Ancestors of Edward Perkins

 

Edward Perkins – Elizabeth Butcher

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Thomas Perkins (1561-1630) – Mary Bate

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Thomas Perkins (1527 -   ) – Alice Kebbell (1527 -    )

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Henry Perkins (1484 -   ) – Elizabeth

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Thomas Perkins (1458-1528) – Alice De Astley

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William Perkins (1430-1495) – Johanna Reed (1434-  )

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Thomas Perkins – Ellen Thompkins

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William Perkins – Margaret Collee

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John Perkins

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Henry Perkins

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Peter Morlauix (1320 -   )  – Agnes Taylor

(from Bretagne, Morlaix, Normandy, France)

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Pierre De Dreux 

 

 

Dean and Dawn Huseby

10969 Langdon Avenue

Mission Hills, CA 91345

huseby (at) earthlink.net

 



[1] mayflowerfamilies.com.

[2] Wikipedia, articles on “Hillmorton” and “Rugby”.

[3] Perkins, Caroline Erickson, The Descendents of Edward Perkins of New Haven, (Rochester, NY, 1914), p.3-4.

[4] Wikepedia, “New Haven.”

[5] Perkins, C., p.3-4.

[6] Perkins, C., p. 3-4.

[7] Perkins, C., p .3-4.

[8] Perkins, C., p. 3-4.

[9] Perkins, C., p. 4-5.

[10] Perkins, C., p. 7-8

[11] Johnson, A., George Booth, and L.H. Pease, Historical Sketch of the Town of Enfield, (Hartford: Case, Lockwood and Brainard Co., 1876), p. 4.

[12] The Enfield Historical Society web page, 2004.

[13] Wikipedia, “Enfield”.

[14] Perkins, C., p. 8.

[15] Perkins, C., p. 20-21.

[16] Barbour, John Warner, “Hartland”, Connecticut Historical Collection, 1836.

[17] Perkins, C., p. 21.

[18] Ibid., p. 105.

[19] ?

[20] History of Trumball and Mahoning Counties, Ohio, (Cleveland:  H.Z. Williams and Brothers, 1882), Volume 2, p. 414.

[21] ?

[22] 1850 and 1860 Federal Census, Mentor, Lake County, Ohio.

[23] Ibid, Volume 1, p. 26.

[25] Ibid, Volume 1, p. 26.

[26] Parker, Rufus, History and Genealogy of the Family of Deacon Lovel Parker, Syracuse, 1898, p. 74.

[27] Trumbull and Mahoning Counties, Ohio, Volume II, Fowler Township, page 412.

[28] Roster of Ohio Soldiers in War of 1812, (Columbus, Ohio: The Adjutant General of Ohio, 1990) p. 88.

[29] Schedule 3 – Persons who Died During the Year Ending 1st June, 1860 in Johnston Township, County of Trumball, State of Ohio, page 3.

[30] 1850 and 1860 Federal Census.

[31] 1850 and 1860 Federal Census.

[32] 1850 and 1860 Federal Census.

[33] Volunteer Enlistment Papers for William Isaac Blair.