My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE W. PERKINS, bookkeeper, Pittsburgh, a son of William and Catherine Perkins, was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1841 His grandfather, Thomas Perkins, came from Wilmington, Del., in 1803, and settled in Pittsburgh, where he opened the first jewelry store. He was one of the founders of the Bank of Pittsburgh, and one of the most prominent men of the city as early as 1810. He purchased considerable land about 1815 in what is now Chartiers township, to which after the big fire in 1845, he moved; here he resided until his death, in 1855, when he was seventy-three years old. He had been twice married; first to a Miss Barclay, by whom he had four children—two sons, William and Thomas, Jr., and two daughters, Eliza (who became the wife of Abraham Nicholson, of Pittsburgh), and Harriet (who became the wife of Owen Flanegan); and next to a Miss Fitzgerald, who died in 1853, by whom he had three sons and one daughter, viz.: James, Charles Quigley, David Jennings and Hannah Kitts (now Mrs. Addison Reno). William Perkins was born in Pittsburgh in the year 1818, was reared to the jewelry and watch-making trade, and subsequently became a partner in the business with his father. He married Catherine, daughter of George and Margaret Sorguis, of Waynesburg, Ohio, and their children were Mary (deceased), Thomas (taken prisoner and died in Salisbury prison, Dec. 1, 1864), George W Harriet (wife of James A. Moore), Sarah, William, Catherine (wife of J. M. Mooney) and Henry C. William Perkins held many positions of trust in this county, among them that of county commissioner, as did also his Father, Thomas Perkins, the same office in 1850; and though not regularly enlisted in the army during the civil war, was very active in his support of the Union forces, and was for some time one of Gov. Curtin’s aids-de-camp. His last service was as mail-agent on the Ft. W. & C. R. R., and while still engaged in that service, in 1869, he was accidentally killed while out hunting at Lakeville, Ohio, at the age of forty-nine years.

George W. Perkins has been twice married; first in January, 1866, to Elizabeth, daughter of Robert and Susan Gillespie and by this union there were six children. The living are Gracie Lincoln, Charles Norman and Irene. Their mother died in 1877, and Mr. Perkins next married, in 1882, Isabella M., daughter of Arthur and Margaret Hill. Their children are Lewis Blashford, George Allen and Mary Blashford. Mr. Perkins was a sergeant in an independent company of state militia when the civil war broke out, and in February, 1861, they tendered their services to the government, were accepted, and assigned to the 13th Pennsylvania regiment, three-months service. In 1862 he was appointed superintendent of the United States army telegraphic construction corps but resigned in 1864 and accepted a position in the post office at Pittsburgh as stamp-clerk under Postmaster Von Bonnhorst. Some eight months after, he took a position with the P. R. R. Co., as assistant chief clerk in the freight department. He also had an interest in the confectionery firm of Hill & Perkins, on Wood street, Pittsburgh, and is at present secretary of the Neuchatel Asphalt company, Pittsburgh. Mr. Perkins is a member of the Masonic fraternity.