William Lee Perkins was born on February 10, 1736, in Suffolk, Massachusetts, and his brother Isaac was born on September 4, 1741. They were the sons of physician John Perkins and his wife, Abigail Lee. Like his father, William studied medicine; in the 1760s, he was recognized for his work in Massachusetts fighting smallpox with inoculation. A Loyalist, he was exiled to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1776, and several years later returned to England, where he continued to practice medicine at Kingston upon Thames, and where he published several articles on medicine. He died in 1797. His brother Isaac, a deacon, remained in North America at Ashford, Connecticut.
From the guide to the William and Isaac Perkins papers, Perkins, William and Isaac Perkins papers, 1784-1794, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
