David Perry (1741) []
DAVID PERRY (Captain), son of ELIAKIM and SARAH (JOY) PERRY, born in Rehoboth, Bristol, Massachusetts, 8 August 1741; died in Chelsea, Orange Vermont, [or Ira, Rutland, Vermont,] 2 May 1826; married in Killingly, Windham, Connecticut, 12 January 1764, ANNA BLISS, daughter of JOHN and REBECCA (WHITAKER) BLISS, born in Rehoboth, 1 April 1740; died in Chelsea [or Cornish, Sullivan, New Hampshire], 12 September 1835.
Following the death of his mother in 1748, DAVID and his sisters lived with their uncle, DAVID JOY. At the age of fifteen, DAVID was apprenticed to Mr. DAVID WALKER, in Dighton, Massachusetts, to learn the tanning and shoe-making trades. His military career began the following year: "In August, I was sixteen years old; at which age the young lads of that day were called into the training-bands. In the Spring of 1758, I was warned to training, and there were recruiting officers on the parade-ground, to enlist men for the next campaign. I enlisted into Capt. JOB WINSLOW's company, of Col. PREBBLE's regiment, to serve eight months. People said I would not 'pass muster,' as I was small of my age; but there was no difficulty about that." DAVID served in the French and Indian Wars (Ticonderoga, 1758; Quebec City, 1759; Minas Basin, Nova Scotia, 1760; and St. John's, Newfoundland, 1762) and the War of the Revolution (Boston and Providence, 1775). DAVID's exploits in the French and Indian Wars and the War of the Revolution are recounted in his autobiography, Recollections of an Old Soldier: the Life of Captain David Perry (1822), for which see the outstanding web page of DENISE JONES
David had completed his indenture to Mr. WALKER before leaving for the Newfoundland campaign. On his return in 1762, he resided again with his uncle in Rehoboth. In April 1763, he relocated to Killingly, Connecticut, "and agreed to work for a man six months, at my trade." He married ANNA BLISS on 12 January 1764, "at which time I was not worth ten dollars, besides my clothes." According to Ancestors of the Bingham Family of Utah and other sources, DAVID had previously married HANNAH SHERWINN (5 March 1761), by whom he had HANNAH, born 21 Jan 1762, and SILAS, born 18 Apr 1763. We assume this to be erroneous, however, since DAVID mentions neither this marriage nor these children in his autobiography; moreover, SILAS, to have been born in April 1763, would had to have been conceived while David was in Newfoundland, presumably without his wife.
In Killingly, said DAVID: "I followed shoe-making, made a comfortable living by it, and soon was able to buy a few acres of land, upon which I erected tan-works -- had a pretty good run of custom, and the inhabitants assisted all they could. Thus for a time matters went on prosperously, and in three or four years I gained considerable property. But there was another tanner in Killingly, named WATSON, who used to have all the custom before I set up business there, and had become pretty rich. Finding his custom decrease as mine gained, he came and proposed to take me into partnership with him, so that we could carry on the business on a large scale. I closed with him, and in three years he managed to get all I had earned, and left me two hundred dollars in debt."
In 1779, following his service in the War of the Revolution, DAVID removed from Connecticut to Plainfield, Sullivan, New Hampshire, where he lived for the next eighteen years. In 1785, he took a Captain's commission in the New Hampshire militia, serving eight years in that capacity. He also served nine years as Selectman of Plainfield. He removed to Chelsea, Vermont, in 1797.
[Article from Bingham Family site by Richard Bingham]
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