Perry family
The Perry family is an American naval and political dynasty from Rhode Island whose members have included several United States naval commanders, naval aviators, politicians, artists, clergymen, lawyers, physicians, and socialites. Progeny of a mid-17th-century English immigrant to South Kingstown, Rhode Island, the Perry family patriarch, Captain Christopher Raymond Perry, and his two sons Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and Commodore Matthew C. Perry, were seminal figures in the legitimization of the United States Navy and establishment of the United States Naval Academy.
History
The Rhode Island Perrys and their origin
Christopher Raymond Perry was born on December 4, 1761, in Newport, Rhode Island, the son of the Hon. Judge Freeman Perry and his wife, Mercy Hazard.File:William Brewster cropped.png|thumb|upright=0.65|left|Christopher R. Perry was a descendant of Elder William Brewster as well as Plymouth colonists Thomas Prence and George Soule
Judge Freeman Perry was a physician and surgeon in the Revolutionary War, as well as a local magistrate who served as Judge of the Court of Washington County and President of the Town Council of South Kingstown. Christopher Raymond Perry's paternal great-grandfather, Edward Perry, came from Devon, England, in 1637 and settled in Sandwich, Massachusetts, where he married his wife, Mary Freeman, in 1653.
Mercy Hazard was a seventh-generation descendant of Captain Richard Raymond, and his wife, Julia, who was likely born in Essex County, England, in 1602 and arrived in Salem, Massachusetts, about 1629, possibly with a contingent led by the Rev. Francis Higginson. He was about 27 years old and later was a founder of Norwich, Connecticut, and an "honored fore-father of Saybrook". Mercy Hazard was also a descendant of Governor Thomas Prence, a co-founder of Eastham, Massachusetts, who was a political leader in both the Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony, and governor of Plymouth; and a descendant of two Mayflower passengers, both of whom were signers of the Mayflower Compact, Elder William Brewster, the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony, and George Soule. Christopher Perry was also descended from Soule through his grandmother Susannah Barber Perry.
American Revolution
Christopher Perry enlisted, at the age of 14, in a local militia company named the Kingston Reds early in the American Revolution. He then served on a privateer commanded by a Captain Reed. After one cruise with Reed, Perry signed on to the privateer Mifflin commanded by George Wait Babcock. The Mifflin was captured by the British and Perry was confined to the infamous prison ship Jersey in New York harbor for three months before he managed to escape.In 1779, Perry joined the Continental Navy as a seaman aboard the frigate USS Trumbull commanded by Captain James Nicholson. On June 1, 1780, the Trumbull engaged the British letter of marque Watt in a hard-fought, but indecisive, action in which the Trumbull suffered 8 killed and 31 wounded compared to the Watts 13 killed and 79 wounded.
Perry then enlisted on another privateer which was captured off the coast of Great Britain. He then was taken as a prisoner to Newry Barracks in Ireland where he met his future wife, Sarah Wallace Alexander. Perry managed another escape by masquerading as a British seaman and taking passage to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. From St. Thomas he took passage to Charleston, South Carolina, shortly before the war's conclusion in 1783.
Post war
After the war, Perry served as a mate on a merchantman which sailed to Ireland where Perry was able to bring his beloved Sarah to the United States. They were married in Philadelphia on August 2, 1784. The young couple then moved to South Kingstown, Rhode Island, where they lived with Perry's parents on their 200-acre estate. Their first child, Oliver Hazard Perry, was born in August 1785.Sarah Wallace was born in County Down, Ireland and was a descendant of an uncle of William Wallace, the Scottish knight and landowner who is known for leading a resistance during the Wars of Scottish Independence and is today remembered as a patriot and national hero.
Christopher Raymond Perry died June 1, 1818, in Newport, Rhode Island.
The two brothers
Oliver Hazard Perry was an American naval commander, born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. As the most well-known and prominent member of the naval dynasty, he was the son of Sarah Wallace Alexander and United States Navy Captain Christopher Raymond Perry, and older brother of Commodore Matthew C. Perry.Perry served in the West Indies during the Quasi-War of 1798–1800 against France, in the Mediterranean during the Barbary Wars of 1801–1815, and in the Caribbean fighting piracy and the slave trade, but is most noted for his heroic role in the War of 1812 during the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie. During the war against Britain, Perry supervised the building of a fleet at Erie, Pennsylvania. He earned the title "Hero of Lake Erie" for leading American forces in a decisive naval victory at the Battle of Lake Erie, receiving a Congressional Gold Medal and the Thanks of Congress. His leadership materially aided the successful outcomes of all nine Lake Erie military campaign victories, and the victory was a turning point in the battle for the west in the war. He is remembered for the words on his battle flag, "Don't Give Up the Ship", which was a tribute to the dying command of his colleague Captain James Lawrence of USS Chesapeake. He is also known for his message to General William Henry Harrison which reads in part, "We have met the enemy and they are ours;..."
Perry became embroiled in a long-standing and bitter controversy with the commander of, Captain Jesse Elliott, over their conduct in the Battle of Lake Erie, and both were the subject of official charges. In 1815, Perry successfully commanded in the Mediterranean during the Second Barbary War. So seminal was his career that he was lionized in the press. He has been frequently memorialized, and many places, ships and persons have been named in his honor.
Matthew Calbraith Perry was a Commodore of the United States Navy who commanded ships in several wars, including the War of 1812 and the Mexican–American War. He played a leading role in the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854.
Perry was interested in the education of naval officers, and assisted in the development of an apprentice system that helped establish the curriculum at the United States Naval Academy. With the advent of the steam engine, he became a leading advocate of modernizing the U.S. Navy and came to be considered "The Father of the Steam Navy" in the United States.
Civil War and Reconstruction era
Rear Admiral Christopher Raymond Perry Rodgers was born on November 4, 1819, in Brooklyn, New York to George Washington Rodgers and Anna Maria Perry. He served as an officer in the United States Navy and Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Squadron in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War, as well as Superintendent of the Naval Academy and President of the United States Naval Institute.Matthew Calbraith Butler, who was born on March 8, 1836, at Eagle's Crag near Greenville, South Carolina, was the son of U.S. Congressman William Butler and Jane Tweedy Perry. Butler served as a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, postbellum three-term United States Democratic Senator from South Carolina, and a major general in the United States Army during the Spanish–American War.
The Gilded Age and the Belmont branch
On November 7, 1849, August Belmont Sr. married Caroline Slidell Perry, the daughter of Matthew Calbraith Perry. According to Jewish newspaper sources, Belmont converted to Christianity at that time, taking his wife's Episcopalian/Anglican faith. Together, they were the parents of six children, with all of his surviving sons becoming involved in politics:File:Perry Belmont.jpg|thumb|upright=0.85|left|Perry Belmont in 1913, following his tenure in the United States House of Representatives and U.S. Ambassador to Spain
Perry Belmont, served as a Democrat to the 47th Congress, followed by a career in the U.S. representative for the first district of New York from March 4, 1881, until his resignation on December 1, 1888. During his first term, he was a member of the committee on foreign affairs; noted for his cross-examination of James G. Blaine, the former secretary of state. Belmont also served from 1885 to 1887 as chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, and on October 6, 1890, was invested as a Commander of the French Legion of Honor. In 1898, during the Spanish–American War, Perry served for six weeks in the Army as an Inspector General of the First Division, Second Army Corps, United States Volunteers, with the rank of major. He was appointed United States Minister to Spain that same year. During the First World War, despite being 65 years old, Belmont was commissioned as a captain in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps on May 5, 1917. He was assigned to the Remount Division in Washington, D.C., and was discharged on May 21, 1920.
August Belmont Jr., was an American financier who levied the construction of the original New York subway and for many years headed the Interborough Rapid Transit Co., which ran the transit system. He also financed and led the construction of the Cape Cod Canal in Massachusetts, which opened in 1914.
Belmont bought the land for and built New York's Belmont Park racetrack—named for his father—and was a major owner/breeder of thoroughbred racehorses. He served as chairman of the board of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. He also served as a director of the Southern Pacific Co., parent of the railroad, and National Park Bank. He and his brother, Perry Belmont, were also founding members of The Jockey Club.
Fredericka Belmont, who married Samuel Shaw Howland, son of Gardiner Greene Howland of Howland & Aspinwall.
Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, was a member of the banking firm of August Belmont and Co., New York City, and a publisher of the Verdict, a weekly paper, who additionally served as delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1900, and was elected as a Democrat from New York's 13th District to the Fifty-seventh Congress serving from March 4, 1901, until March 3, 1903.
Raymond Rodgers Belmont, was a champion polo player who participated in the 1886 International Polo Cup with teammates William Knapp Thorn, Foxhall Parker Keene and Thomas Hitchcock Sr., and later died on January 31, 1887, in New York City, by shooting himself in the side of the head with a pistol. He was buried in the Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island.