♂Thomas Perkins

Thomas Perkins (baptised 28 June 1724 – 1794) was town clerk of Arundel, in the District of Maine (now Kennebunkport), and several times its representative to the General Court of Massachusetts. He was the fifth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Mary Perkins (1758–1845).

Early life

He was baptised at Topsfield, Massachusetts, on 28 June 1724, entered in the register as “Thomas, s. Ensign Thomas”. His parents, Ensign Thomas Perkins and Mary Wildes, had married at Topsfield in 1719 and settled at Cape Porpoise, the later Arundel; his mother went back to her old home at Topsfield for the births of her first two children, of whom he was the second.

Arundel

Charles Bradbury’s History of Kennebunk Port (1837) records that the younger Thomas, like his father, served as town clerk, and that he was sent to the General Court several times. His first wife, whom he married at Salem, died about 1758 and left no children. His second wife was Susannah Hovey, daughter of the Rev. John Hovey, minister of Arundel. Bradbury names ten children; his daughter Mary married Gideon Walker and later moved with him to Topsham.

A private family record copied into the published vital records of Topsham calls Mary’s father “Thomas, Esq., of Kennebunk, who was a minister”. Bradbury does not make him a minister, and no other record does. The minister in the family was Mary’s grandfather, the Rev. John Hovey, and the Topsham record probably folds the two generations together.

Death and estate

He died at Arundel in 1794, without a will. On 18 May 1795 the York County probate court granted administration of the estate of “Thomas Perkins Esq.” to his widow Susanna and a son Thomas. The appraisers valued the homestead and its buildings at £580, and his outlands, mills and mill privilege, “with half the pew”, at £190, and one third of the whole was set off to “Susanna Perkins Widow of the said Deceased” as her dower. She was dead by 1800. On 27 January 1802 Gideon Walker, Mary’s husband, petitioned the court on behalf of the heirs, asking that the widow’s third be divided among them “as the law directs”.

Notes

Mary’s mother is placed as Susannah Hovey by the dates: the first wife died about 1758 without children, and Mary was born about then. No record found so far names Mary’s mother. Kennebunkport had a second Thomas Perkins family, that of Captain Thomas Perkins who came from Greenland, New Hampshire, in 1720; Bradbury keeps the two apart, and they are not the same line.