Thomas Handasyd Perkins

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Thomas Handasyd Perkins.

Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins, or T. H. Perkins, (December 15, 1764 - January 11, 1854) was an enormously wealthy Boston merchant and an archetypical Boston Brahmin. Starting with bequests from his grandfather and father-in-law, he amassed a huge fortune. As a young man he was a slave trader in Haiti, a merchant trading furs from the American Northwest to China, and then a major smuggler of Turkish opium into China.

His parents, James Perkins and Elizabeth Peck, had ten children in eighteen years. When Perkins was twelve, he was in the crowd which first heard the Declaration of Independence read to the citizens of Boston. The family had planned to send Perkins to Harvard College, but he had no interest in a college education. In 1779 he began working, and in 1785 when he turned 21 he became legally entitled to a small bequest that had been left to him by his grandfather Peck.

In 1785, when China opened the port of Canton to foreign businesses, Perkins became one of the first Boston merchants to engage in the China trade. He sailed on the Astrea to Canton in 1789 with a cargo including ginseng, cheese, lard, wine, and iron. On the trip back it carried tea and cotton cloth. In 1815 Perkins and his brother opened a Mediterranean office to buy Turkish opium for resale in China.

Perkins was also a major industrial investor within Massachusetts. He owned the Granite Railway, the first commercial American railroad, which was built to carry granite from Quincy quarries to Charlestown for construction of the Bunker Hill Monument and other city buildings in Boston. He also held significant holdings in the Elliot textile mills in Newton, the mills at Holyoke and Lowell, New England canals and railroads, and lead and iron mines including the Monkton Iron Company in Vermont. In addition, Perkins was politically active in the Federalist party, serving terms as state senator and representative from 1805-1817.

Perkins married Sarah "Sally" Elliott (1768-February 25, 1852) on March 25, 1788, in Boston, Massachusetts. They had three children: Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins, Jr. ("Short-arm Tom"); Elizabeth Perkins Cabot (1791-1885); and Caroline Perkins Gardiner (1800-1867). His nephew John Perkins Cushing was active in Perkin's China business for 30 years; the town of Belmont, Massachusetts is named for his estate.

In later years Perkins became a philanthropist. In 1826, he and his brother, James Perkins, contributed half the sum of $30,000 that was needed for an addition to the Boston Athenaeum, and the old Boston Athenaeum Gallery of Art was moved to James Perkin's home. The Perkins School for the Blind, still in existence in Watertown, Massachusetts, was renamed in his honor after he donated his Boston mansion to the financially troubled "Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind" in 1832. He was also a major benefactor to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, McLean Hospital, and helped found the Massachusetts General Hospital. Upon retirement, Perkins built a summer home on Swan Island, Maine and helped the island achieve independent municipal status by paying legal fees for its charter. The town was renamed Perkins, Maine in gratitude.

Colonel Perkins died on January 11, 1854 in Brookline, Massachusetts, and is buried in the family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery.