Eleven generations and one less R

The missing R

Glover’s genealogy spells every generation before Lemuel with two Rs. Glover Perin, who compiled the family genealogy in 1885, knew exactly who was responsible for the change, because it was his own grandfather. Of Lemuel Perin, born 1749, he wrote:

Dropped one “r” from his surname, by what authority is not known.

Glover Perin, Genealogy of the Perrin Family, 1885, entry 218

Glover clearly minded. In the book’s preface he came back to it: Lemuel “contended that the name properly contained but one ‘r’ and his example was followed by several of his brothers. The name as traditionally pronounced should have two ‘r’s, and I think it is to be regretted that there was any departure from that standard.” He signed the book Glover Perin all the same. Published genealogy

So the spelling Grandpa carries was a choice, made on purpose by a Revolutionary War soldier with opinions. The older records are not consistent anyway. Glover found the first John’s name in the Rehoboth town records as Perryn, Perrin, Perrine, Perryne and Perin. When searching old records, search every one of them.

The line, generation by generation

Here is the direct line from the first John to Grandpa. Four Johns in a row is confusing even to the people who study them, so they are told apart by their dates. Each step is marked by what supports it.

1. John Perrin about 1614 – 13 September 1674 married Ann, surname unknown, who was buried at Rehoboth in 1688 The immigrant. At Braintree, Massachusetts by 1640, then among the first planters of Rehoboth. Grandpa’s eight-times-great-grandfather. Published genealogy
2. John Perrin about 1642 – 1694 married Mary; later books disagree about her maiden name Born at Braintree before the move to Rehoboth. Died at Roxbury before 28 May 1694, “while temporarily residing there, probably with his son Noah,” Glover says, though by Glover’s own dates Noah was fourteen that year. Glover does not say where he was buried. Ten children. Published genealogy Grandpa’s database places his burial at Roxbury, in the Eliot Burying Ground. Family chart
3. John Perrin 12 October 1668 – 6 May 1694 married Sarah, surname unknown Died at twenty-five, in 1694, the same year as his father, leaving one son just over two. Published genealogy
4. John Perrin 8 March 1692 – 28 February 1731 married Rachel Ide (1695–1780) in 1716 Of Rehoboth. His widow married Deacon Edward Glover and outlived her first husband by fifty years; she was buried beside him. Published genealogy
5. Jesse Perrin 24 January 1726 – 15 January 1801 married another Rachel Ide (1730–1808), daughter of Daniel Ide, in 1749 Town clerk of Rehoboth for twenty-five years, 1762 to 1787, so the town’s own records from the Revolution are partly in his hand. Twelve children. Published genealogy Grandpa’s database has him dying at Savoy, in the Berkshires, buried in the Ingraham Cemetery there, and his widow Rachel dying in 1808 at Perinton, New York. Family chart
6. Lemuel Perin 21 October 1749 – 9 July 1822 married Martha Nash in 1773, then Amelia Dickinson in 1792 Born at Rehoboth, served in the Revolution, dropped the R, and took the family west. His story is in the next chapter. Published genealogy
7. John Perin 18 December 1774 – 21 January 1866 married Hephzibah Williams in 1797; then Rachel Rice in 1803 The builder of the brick house near Connersville, Indiana. Ezra’s mother was Rachel, his second wife. Published genealogy
8. Ezra Rice Perin 1818 – 1902 married Phoebe Jane Utter in 1839 Millwright, violin maker and patented inventor. Chapter three. Seen in records
9. Charles Rice Perin 1860 – 1926 married Geraldine Allison in 1884 A teacher; Ezra’s youngest. Seen in records
10. Arthur Perin 1898 – 1981 married Esther Minerva Marsh Of Portland, Oregon. Seen in records
11. Daniel John Perin born 1934 Grandpa.

The first John

John Perrin is first found at Braintree, south of Boston, where his daughter Mary was born on 22 December 1640. Within a few years he moved with the Reverend Samuel Newman and his congregation to found a new town, Rehoboth, on the Plymouth Colony frontier. Glover says his tombstone was there in 1885. Published genealogy

A 1910 family history, Allied Families of Purdy, Fauconnier, Archer, Perrin, read the Rehoboth records further. It found him among the first planters taxed for their lands in October 1643, drawing lots for woodland and meadow, chosen among nine men for the protection of the town in 1644, and serving for years as surveyor, constable and clerk. It also reports his will, dated 16 June 1674, leaving everything equally to his wife Anna, his sons John and Abraham, and his daughters Anna and Mary. Published genealogy

His son John was in the generation that lived through King Philip’s War. In 1676 Rehoboth saw some of the worst fighting in Plymouth Colony, and the same 1910 book has the second John among the townsmen who advanced money for its defence. Published genealogy

Where he came from

The family has long said the first John was born in 1614 and came from England, perhaps from an armigerous family at Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire, perhaps from France before that. Those claims came down through the family before anyone had found records for them, and the records are still being looked for. The 1614 year comes from a twenty-one-year-old John Perryn on a ship bound for Virginia in 1635, and nobody has yet proved he was our John. Chapter eight follows that trail page by page.

Where the name Glover came from

Glover is an unusual first name, and it runs through the family: Jesse named a son Glover in 1762, Lemuel named one in 1795, and Lemuel’s grandson Glover wrote the genealogy. The genealogy itself contains the likely reason. After the fourth John died in 1731, his widow Rachel married Deacon Edward Glover, who became Jesse’s stepfather. That connection is our reading of the dates; nobody in the family wrote it down.

Jesse’s son Glover, born in 1762, has a small place in the history of New York. His cousin William Walker, the son of Jesse’s sister Elizabeth, hired him to survey land in the Genesee country, and Glover Perrin, with his brothers and sisters and their families, was among the first permanent settlers of the town that became Perinton, near Rochester, spelled Perrinton in the early censuses. Published genealogy His mother Rachel died there in 1808, according to Grandpa’s database. Family chart

How sure is all this?

The chain from the first John to Lemuel rests mainly on one book, Glover’s genealogy of 1885, which he compiled from family letters and from the research of two cousins in Massachusetts. It is careful and specific, but it is not a set of birth certificates, and later researchers have found mistakes in it here and there. From Lemuel forward the chain is held by more than one source: an 1880 county history names Lemuel and Martha as the parents of Samuel of Perin’s Mills; a governor’s biography names John Perin and Rachel Rice as his grandparents; and the patent office names Ezra. Grandpa’s DNA cousins add a different kind of support: descendants of Lemuel’s other children, by both his wives, share DNA with him. Chapter seven has them.

The records most likely to test the early generations are Rehoboth’s own town and probate records.