Perkins, Elias, 1767-1845

Lawyer, of New London, Conn.; member of the Connecticut General Assembly (1795-1800, 1814-1815); served twice as speaker of the house; in 1799 appointed Assistant Judge of the County; in 1807 appointed Chief Judge; elected to U.S. Congress (1801-1803); member of state senate (1817-1822); mayor of New London (1829-1832).

Lawyer, judge, state legislator, U.S. congressman, and mayor of New London, Conn.

Lawyer, businessman, state legislator, New London County judge, mayor, civic leader, and U.S. Representative, of New London, Conn.; member of Federalist Party. First wife was Lucretia Shaw Woodbridge (d. 1802) from whom he inherited the Shaw Mansion.

Elias Perkins: practiced law in New London, Connecticut; member of the Connecticut General Assembly, 1795-1800, 1814-1815; served twice as speaker of the house; in 1799 appointed Assistant Judge of the County; in 1807 appointed Chief Judge; elected to U.S. Congress, 1801-1803; member of state senate, 1817-1822; from 1829-1832 mayor of New London.

Elias Perkins: practiced law in New London, Connecticut; member of the Connecticut General Assembly, 1795-1800, 1814-1815; served twice as speaker of the house; in 1799 appointed Assistant Judge of the County; in 1807 appointed Chief Judge; elected to U.S. Congress, 1801-1803; member of state senate, 1817-1822; from 1829-1832 mayor of New London.

Elias Perkins was born in Newent Society, now Lisbon, Connecticut, on April 5, 1767. A twin-brother was graduated a year later, and an older brother a year earlier.

He left College with a high reputation for scholarship and after studying law settled in practice in New London, Connecticut, where he married on March 14, 1790, Lucretia Shaw, the only surviving daughter of the Rev. Ephraim Woodbridge (Yale 1765).

He was one of the Representatives of the city in the General Assembly during eight sessions between 1795 and 1800, and again in 1814 and 1815,--in which last session, as in one in 1798, he served as Speaker of the House.

At a comparatively early date (1799) he was appointed an Assistant Judge of the County, and in 1907 was promoted to the rank of Chief Judge, which he retained until 1825.

In politics he was a Federalist, and as such was elected to Congress for one term, 1801 to 1803. Later he was in the State Senate for six years, from 1817 to 1822, being also for this period ex-officio a Fellow of the Yale Corporation.

From 1829 to 1832 he was Mayor of New London.

He was the first President of the New London Bank, which was chartered in 1907.

In 1817 he was chosen to be a Deacon in the First Congregational Church in New London. An engraving from his full-length portrait is given in a volume of the American National Register .

His wife died on March 6, 1802, in her 29th year; and he next married on February 11, 1805, Mary, second daughter of John and Lucretia (Christophers) Mumford, of the present township of Salem, Connecticut, who died on March 22, 1830, in her 56th year.

By his first wife he had four sons and two daughters. The first and second sons were both graduated at Yale in 1812, and the others died in infancy. The younger daughter married Charles Griswold (Yale 1808).

Mr. Perkins died in New London on September 27, 1845, in his 79th year.

Two of his private letters to Governor Griswold (1800-01) are printed in the Family-Histories and Genealogies of Mr. And Mrs. Salisbury.

(Taken from Biographical Sketches of Yale Colleg e, F. B. Dexter, pp. 502-503).