Father: Stephen Perkins
Mother: Elizabeth Ford

Spouse: Phebe Moulthrop
 m: 23/Feb/1728(1729) - First Congregational Ch., New Haven, New Haven Co., CT

Child-1: Phoebe - b: 17/Feb/1730(1731) - New Haven Co., CT - d: Wilkes Co., NC
                            m:  Joseph Woodin/Wooding - 10/Jan/1754 - New Haven Co., CT
                            m: Samuel Custis - m: ***** Russell
          2: Joseph - b: 23/Sep/1733 - New Haven Co., CT - d: ~1734
          3: Timothy
          4: Joseph, Jr.
          5: Lydia - bp: 12/Jul/1741 - New Haven, New Haven Co., CT
          6: Abial - bp: 1/Jun/1746 - New Haven Co., CT
                          m: Mark Porter - 4/Mar/1771
          7: Tryphena - bp: 6/Nov/1748 - Wallingford, New Haven Co., CT - m: Joshua Hitchcock
          8: Amy - bp: 22/Oct/1752 - New Haven Co., CT - m: Abel Scott - 30/Jan/1776
          9: Miriam - b: ~1754 - New Haven Co., CT - m: ***** Crouch or Couch
        10: Charity - b: ~1756 - New Haven Co., CT - m: ***** Screech

Biographical Details:

According to Ms. C. E. Perkins' published genealogy of the Perkins family, Joseph Perkins, Sr., was born on September 18, 1701, at New Haven, Connecticut, and was the oldest child of Stephen and Elizabeth Ford Perkins.  Specific details of his life are quite sparse, however, it has been recorded that on April 26, 1723, Joseph Perkins bought a parcel of land in the "fifth division" from his father, which had formerly belonged to John Glover.  The stated price was "three swine and some Indian corn".  Two years later, on June 8, 1725, as a gift Stephen Perkins conveyed by deed to his son, Joseph, one half of a messuage (i.e., a dwelling house with adjacent buildings and grounds and other adjoining lands used in connection with the household), tenement, and land.  Additionally, it was further stated that this was where his father then lived and was at or near a place called Round Hill.  Although several present locations in Connecticut still remain identified as Round Hill, it is probable that the one indicated lies about five miles northwest of the city center of  New Haven, near the intersection at Paynes Corners of modern state highway routes sixty-three and sixty-seven.  Subsequently, Joseph Perkins married Phebe Moulthrop (or Moultrap) on February 23, 1728 (1729 N. S.), reportedly in New Haven by Captain John Riggs, Justice of the Peace.  Only four children, Phebe, Joseph, Abial, and Triphena, have been attributed to them in the previously cited published source.  However, other secondary sources indicate that there were six more, Timothy, Lydia, Amy, Miriam, Charity, and a second Joseph, all believed to have been born in Connecticut.  Obviously, this implies that the first son named Joseph must have died as a child before the second son given the same name was born.  Although such a practice of  "name recycling" would not be acceptable in present society, it was not unusual in seventeenth and eighteenth century colonial America owing to the high rate of infant mortality.

In the 1770's several members of the Perkins family migrated from Connecticut to the North Carolina back country.  The motivation for this move has been examined elsewhere; however, the party is known to have included Joseph and Phebe's adult sons, Timothy and Joseph, and possibly their two daughters, Tryphena and Charity, as well as, perhaps, others.  In support of this, many researchers believe that Tryphena Perkins married Joshua Hitchcock in North Carolina and, furthermore, that two of their daughters, Ruth and Margaret, married two of Tryphena's nephews, Stephen and William Perkins, sons of Timothy and Miriam Sperry Perkins.  These intermarriages have not been definitively proven, but they are quite plausible since marriage between first cousins was more socially acceptable in pioneer society in contrast to present practice.  In addition, Charity Perkins is said to have married someone named Screech.  This, perhaps, provides the basis for a passage in Arthur's History of Western North Carolina attributed to J. D. Perkins in a letter to his brother L. N. Perkins written in 1913 in which he states,  "I have forgotten the names of most of our great grand uncles ... but I remember to have heard our mother tell about seeing 'Granny Skritch,' a sister to our great-great-grandfather, and who was very old at that time, and living with one of her Perkins relatives up on Little Wilson.  Our mother was then quite small and the old lady ... was very old and confined to her bed; but our mother was impressed with Granny Skritch's loyalty, even then, to King George, and the manner in which she abused the Patriot soldiers in her talk."  Within this context, J. D. and L. N. Perkins can be identified as James Davis and Leander N., sons of John H. and Lucy Young Perkins and, hence, grandsons of Stephen and Ruth Hitchcock Perkins.  At the time, James was an attorney practicing in Grayson and Smyth Counties in Virginia and Leander was a farmer in Watauga County, North Carolina, apparently living in or near the town of Boone.  Matters are made more confusing because their mother, Lucy, was a daughter of William and Jane Baker Young and, thus, a granddaughter of Joseph and Lucy Perkins Young.  Of course, Lucy Perkins Young can be recognized immediately as the sister of Stephen Perkins.  Therefore, James and Leander Perkins were simultaneously paternal great-grandsons and maternal great-great-grandsons of Timothy and Miriam Sperry Perkins.  Accordingly, as indicated by later census records James and Leander's mother was born about 1823, thus, she may have, indeed, seen "Granny Skritch" in the 1830's.  Moreover, it seems quite plausible that "Skritch" is a corruption of Screech and; hence, likely that Granny Skritch was, in fact, Charity Perkins Screech, who would have probably been about eighty years old at that time.  No probate records have been found for Joseph or Phebe Moulthrop Perkins in New Haven.  Consequently, it is thought by many family researchers that they also left Connecticut and settled in North Carolina with the families of their children, where they subsequently died about 1776.  However, no significant documentary evidence in support of this has been found.  Clearly, they would have been quite elderly to have made such a trip and it is, perhaps, more likely that they simply died intestate in Connecticut.

1. Caroline Erickson Perkins, The Descendants of Edward Perkins of New Haven, Conn., Rochester, NY, 1914: pgs. 23-4. (Reprint available from the Higginson Book Co., 148 Wash. St., P. O. B. 778, Salem, MA, 01970)

2. Vital Records of New Haven, 1649-1850, pub. by Connecticut Society of the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America, Hartford, CT, 1917-1924: Vol. 1, pg. 471.  (cited by Steven Curtis Perkins, "Ancestry of Jabez Perkins", freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~scperkins/jabez.html, 1989-2001.)

3. Paula Perkins Mortensen, English Origin of Six Early Colonists by the Name Perkins, Gateway Press, Baltimore, MD, 1998.

4. John Preston Arthur, History of Western North Carolina, Chap. V, Edwards and Broughton Printing Co., Raleigh, NC, 1914.  (Jeffrey Weaver (tr), New River Notes, www.newrivernotes.com/index.htm, 2015.)

Return to Index