By Jeff Blakley
Much has been written about the death of Dr. Henry E. Perrine on Indian Key on August 7, 1840. Those stories repeat the very little information about his death that is in the book his son, Henry Jr., wrote in 1885. Almost all of that 303-page tome, A True Story of Some Eventful Years in Grandpa’s Life1, is devoted to the author’s life, not that of his father. This is understandable, as he was only thirteen when his father was killed. He did have access to family letters, but there apparently wasn’t much in them of interest to Henry. The only other readily available source of information about the Perrine family is the book Daniel Perrin “The Huguenot”, written in 1910 by Howland Delano Perrine.2 Howland’s book is a traditional genealogical history of the Perrine family but it has very little information on Dr. Perrine and his family. It only states that Dr. Perrine died on Indian Key on August 7, 1840. The only other account of the incident at Indian Key is that written by his daughter, Hester, which, interestingly enough, was also written in 1885.3 Historians interested in Perrine’s life before he arrived in Indian Key on Christmas Day, 1838, have to find other ways to tell that story.
Henry was born on April 5, 1797 in New Brunswick, Cranbury Township, Middlesex County, NJ, the son of Peter Perrine (1771-1813) and Sally Rosengrant (1775-1832).4 Peter and Sally had six children: three sons and three daughters. Henry’s brother, John Allen Perrine, was born in 1801 and died in 1865.5 He was the postmaster of Princeton, NJ and also commanded the Jersey Blues regiment at the end of the Civil War.6 Henry’s other brother, Edward M., was born in 1807 and died in 1828. One of his sisters, Mary Ann, was born in 1804 and died in 1805.7 Another sister, Sarah Ann, born in 1809, married William Ardis in 1837 and died before 1848.8 They lived in Philadelphia but had no children. His youngest sister, Henrietta Elizabeth, born in 1813, never married and died in Philadelphia.9
In his book, his son wrote that his father had taught school in 1814 in Rocky Hill, NJ.10 While he was only seventeen at the time, this was not uncommon in that era. Teachers then, unlike now, did not have to have teaching certificates or degrees. For his era, Dr. Henry E. Perrine was very well-educated. As evidence of this, on December 17, 1831, he sent a hand-written letter to Florida Governor William P. Duval and the Florida Legislative Council. His handwriting in that letter is meticulous and his spelling and grammar are impeccable.11 As early as December of 1818, Henry Perrine and Dr. Jacob B. Drake were speculating in land in Bond Co., IL, when he and Dr. Drake first arrived in Greenville.12 There, they stayed in a boarding house owned by Richard White, located13 two and a half miles west of Greenville.14 Henry, as assignee for John Houston and John Lindley, acquired two 80-acre parcels of land: the east half of the northwest quarter of section 8 in township 5 north, range 3 west and the east half of the southeast quarter of section 30 in township 5 north, range 3 west. Both parcels were patented on June 7, 1825. He, along with John Lindley, also claimed the west half of the northwest quarter of section 19 in township 5 north, range 3 west. However, Perrine did not complete that deal – William Nelson did.15
Perrine only taught school for a couple of years before deciding to become a doctor. In that era, medical training, such as it was, took either of two forms: an apprenticeship with a doctor or a two-semester course at a school. Perrine elected to go to school but he may also have apprenticed with Dr. Jacob B. Drake, who accompanied him to Bond County, Illinois in 1819. Henry graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the City of New York in 1819.16 We know this because he published his medical credentials in the Edwardsville Spectator on August 7, 1821 in an advertisement for his practice in Illinois. He had “[d]iplomas of the Medico-chiurgical Society,17 and of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of the State of New York; certificates of his attendance on various Lectures in the City of New York, Certificates of his attendance in the City Hospital…” and letters of reference from Dr. Todd in Edwardsville, Dr. Heath in Belleville, Dr. Wheeler in St. Charles and Dr. DeCamp in St. Louis.18 Dr. Todd was John Todd (1787-1865), brother of Robert Smith Todd (1791-1849) and uncle of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Todd and Dr. DeCamp dissolved their partnership before late 1820,19 when Dr. DeCamp moved to St. Louis. No information could be found about the other doctors.
In one of the family letters used by Henry, Jr. in his book, Dr. Perrine wrote to his Uncle Henry (1785-1846), giving him an account of his trip from New Jersey to Illinois. Writing from near Ripley in Bond County, IL, on November 15, 1819, he stated that he and Dr. Drake had set out for the frontier from New Jersey on July 21.20 Dr. Drake was Dr. Jacob B. Drake (1788-1858),21 who later moved to Greenville, where he engaged “in the practice of medicine for many years.”22 Dr. Perrine wrote that he had set up his practice on September 30 in his boarding house, named Jersey Grove,23
located between Ripley (now Old Ripley) and Greenville in Bond County, IL. Jersey Grove was likely located on Perrine’s homestead claim in section 30 of township 5 north, range 3 west.
Henry’s future wife’s parents, Rev. Jesse (1766-1838),24 and Ann May Townsend (1762-1846),25 were early residents of Palmyra, NY, living there before 1812, when Rev. Townsend was mentioned in W. H. McIntosh’s History of Wayne County, New York.26 Jesse Townsend was a graduate of Yale and a church historian who assumed the pastorate of the Western Presbyterian Church of Palmyra on August 29, 1817.27 On August 12, 1819, Townsend claimed the east half of the northeast quarter of section 6 in township 7 north, range 4 west and the east half of the southeast quarter of section 31 in township 8 north, range 4 west, which is about 12 miles southwest of Hillsboro, in what is now Montgomery County, IL.28 Their new home, which they named Townsend’s Prairie,29 was about 20 miles northwest of Jersey Grove.30 Their son, Eleazer May (1793-1850),31 was one of two acting County Commissioners in Bond County in 1820.32 Their daughter Ann33 was, Henry wrote, an attractive young lady courted by many young men. But his father won her heart and they became engaged in the summer of 1821.34
In the afternoon of September 19, 1821, one of Dr. Perrine’s students, Mr. Pickett,35 weighed out “a quantity of white arsenic (ratsbane), which he placed in a measure glass, with the intention of speedily removing it.” He didn’t remove it, though. Perrine, in a hurry to leave to attend to his patients, did not pay any attention to what his student was doing. Having completed his patient visits, Perrine stopped for the night at the house of Richard White, a neighbor who didn’t live far away. The next morning, he was roused by a Mr. Hunt to attend to his daughter, who lived on “Beaver Creek, six or seven miles distant.” Having only recently recovered from a severe attack of dysentery, for which he took quinine in the form of Peruvian bark powder every morning, he stopped at his shop “to procure some necessary articles,” placed some Peruvian bark36 powder in the measuring glass that Mr. Pickett had left the arsenic in, “stirred it up with some whiskey to wet it and swallowed nearly the whole.”37 He almost died as a result.
Ann Townsend nursed her future husband back to health and after he had recovered, she and Henry were married at Ann’s parents’ house on January 8, 1822.38 Their first daughter, Sarah Ann, was born on March 24, 1823.
In that era, doctors very commonly recommended that their patients move to warmer climates to recover their health. A little over two and a half years after his bout with arsenic poisoning, The Edwardsville Spectator, in Edwardsville, IL, published Perrine’s announcement that he would be leaving the state on about April 25th, 1824.39 He travelled down the Mississippi to Natchez, where he established a successful practice. We do not know if he traveled back to Illinois to be with his wife when their second daughter, Hester Marie Smith, was born on July 11, 1824.40 According to Henry, Jr., Hester was named after a maiden lady who took care of his father during a serious illness he suffered, apparently shortly after he arrived in Natchez, although Henry’s account is vague.41 In an article published in The Philadelphia Journal of Medical and Physical Sciences in 1826, Dr. Perrine wrote, in some detail, how he treated some of his patients for fever. He bled them and administered calomel, castor oil, sulphate of quinine and purgative pills. Two of his patients were Black women, which points to his practice catering to the wealthy because the Black women were likely servants in upper-class homes. He noted that some of his patients exhibited no signs of illness in January of 1826 after being treated by him.42
For his time, Perrine received a very good education. Not many men had the wherewithal to become doctors in 1819 and it is likely that his father was a well-to-do businessman in Cranbury. As a result, Perrine came to be on good terms with many powerful men. Only a few of those men’s names are known. How he came to know them and what the nature of his relationship to them was is unfortunately unknown. However, it is pretty clear that he had money and contacts that enabled him to freely move in the social circles that made the society pages in the newspapers of the day. His patients in Natchez were members of the upper-class and his trips to, from and between Campeche, Yucatán; Havana, Cuba; Ripley, Illinois; New Orleans, Louisiana; Charleston, South Carolina; Palmyra, New York, Key West, Florida and other locations were not free.
Perrine’s father could trace his ancestry back to the arrival of Daniel Perrin in Elizabethtown, NJ in 1665. There is little doubt that the Perrine family, which included a number of merchants, ministers and politicians, employed slave labor to be able to advance to the upper class. What becomes clear, in reading the available sources, is that Dr. Perrine saw himself as better than most other people. He had an assessment of himself as a member of the elite who deserved special treatment. This becomes obvious at several points in his life and was a contributing factor to his untimely death at the age of 43 on Indian Key. The details are beyond the scope of this article, though. It is sufficient to note that Perrine’s racism had deep roots.
The following statements are from Perrine’s letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, dated February 1, 1834 and written from the Consulate at Campeche:43
“The necessity of cultivating tropical productions for home consumption, is shown by the facts, that the voluntary labor of the many millions of the colored races spread over the extremely great surface of the whole torrid zone, does not create scarcely any cultivated tropical productions for extra-tropical consumption; that the forced labor of a few millions of the black race, on an extremely small surface of the West India islands, does create nearly all the cultivated staples for exportation; and that the forced labor of this black race, with its essential auxiliaries, the skill and capital of the white race, is becoming greatly reduced by the recent emancipation act of the British Parliament.”44
…
“Indeed, the greatly superior productiveness of the forced labor of the colored natives in hot climates, over the voluntary labor of those races in those climates, is doubted only by the distant theorists, on the false data obtained from the voluntary labor of the white natives of cold climates, and from the unphilosophical supposition of the equality or sameness of the different species of mankind. Yet, while this undeniable fact unequivocally shows the relative advantage of employing our existing slaves in the cultivation of tropical staples, it is not cited to prove either the positive propriety or the political expediency of the perpetual continuance of our negro slavery. On the contrary, it is expressly admitted that the free labor of the white race is so much more productive than either the forced or free labor of the black race, that on this account alone it will in time become desirable to transfer all the colored species to their original Africa, and to avail ourselves, even in tropical agriculture, of the voluntary labor of our white citizens alone.
…
“Our Government is the best in the world, because it is the Government of a most moral, industrious, enlightened, and enterprising people. On the contrary, the best colored species of the torrid zone are inferior to the worst varieties of the white species of the temperate zone, in the capacities as well as in the desires, of improving their individual and social condition. Their varied mis-governments are the natural result of an indolent, ignorant, immoral, imbecile, and, consequently, poor population. Possessing very few personal desires and very little political protection, scarcely any skill and rarely any capital, however abundant may be the free laborers, and however cheap the free labor, their agricultural products must continue to be scanty and dear. Even in the nominal republics of tropical America, the agriculture of their Indian citizens very rarely affords an adequate supply for their limited domestic market, or even for their scanty personal consumption alone…
…
“The Spanish variety of the white species of mankind is notorious for the numerous defects of the national character, institutions, and even religion of the individuals who compose it, on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. The disadvantages for profitable production common to all colonial establishments hence increase, both in number and weight, in a Spanish colony. The innumerable taxations of most Catholic despotism, on the time and money of its subjects, rival, in abusive oppression, the numerous exactions of most Catholic superstition on the purse and pursuits of its professors.
…
“The neighboring miscalled republics contain four times as many Indian as white citizens. The latter are the least productive variety of the white race; and their Governments are mere military anarchies. The neighboring distracted colonies contain a majority of negroes, who, when freed, will expel the whites; and thenceforward, like their Haytian predecessors, they will be productive alone in the propagation of their species.
…
“With the most favorable form of government, and the most productive varieties of the best species of the human race, we have all the soils and climates of the earth, and the consequent ability to cultivate most profitably all the most valuable varieties of the best species of the vegetable race. It hence becomes our duty to combine within our territory the creation of the greatest possible amount and variety of cultivated vegetable products for the physical enjoyment, not merely of our own citizens, but also of the inhabitants of all extra-tropical countries, and probably even of the natives of the torrid zone itself.”
When Dr. Perrine moved to Natchez in 1824, he did not bring his family along with him. As a physician, he was well-aware of the prevalence of disease in Natchez and fell ill himself shortly before his daughter was born. In 1820, there were 21,620 Whites and 26,326 Blacks living in Natchez.45 Given Perrine’s racism, it is entirely possible that he felt that he might be endangering the life of his wife if he brought her with him.
In 1825, Ann’s father, Rev. Jesse Townsend, secured a preaching position in Sodus,46 a small town about 20 miles north of Palmyra near the shore of Lake Erie. Ann Perrine and her daughters accompanied her father to Sodus, as Henry wrote that “it was not deemed advisable to expose them to the dangers incident to a residence on the lower Mississippi and later to that in Yucatan.”47 Since Dr. Perrine had received the patents on his two 80-acre homestead claims on June 7, his wife and children may have left soon after, flush with money from selling their properties. Henry, his wife and their children were in Bond County for not quite six years.
Driven by sickness,48 in the spring of 1826 Henry travelled to Cuba, where he may have met with Don Ramon de la Sagra, a noted botanist and writer, who was with the Royal Botanical Garden in Havana. de la Sagra was the author of many books, among them Anales de Ciencias, Agricultura, Comercia y Artes, written from 1827 to 1830. In his petition to Congress for a township of land in 1838, Perrine took agricultural data from the Statistical History of Cuba, which may be the same book, to support his request.49
Later in 1826, Perrine applied for the position as U. S. Consul in Campeche, Yucatan, the capital city of the Mexican state of Campeche. Consuls were not paid by the U.S. government and one result of this was that there was no training or experience required for the position. Then and now, diplomatic positions were political appointments and those selected to fill those positions often had other sources of income. Perrine’s application was approved in January of 1827, during the administration of John Quincy Adams.50 and he arrived in Campeche in June of 1827.51
In Part II of this article, I will cover Dr. Perrine’s life from the time he was appointed Consul in Campeche until his death on Indian Key in 1840.
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