Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

William Perkins (b. 1820 - d. 1895)
MSA SC 5496-51553
Entrepreneur, Black Property Owner, Kent County

Biography:

William H. Perkins was among the most prominent black entrepreneurs, civil rights leaders, and politicians in Maryland during the nineteenth century.

He was born a freeman in Chestertown, Maryland in 1820.1 His father, Samuel Perkins, was among the most successful black entrepreneurs in antebellum Chestertown. Samuel Perkins engaged in a variety of businesses over the course of his career but his most successful business was an oyster restaurant which appears in advertisements in the Chestertown Transcript as early as 1827.2 In 1846, Samuel posted an advertisement stating that his oyster saloon had moved to the “Old Billiard Room” where he advertises his “upwards of twenty-five years in serving up oysters.” 3 In 1856, William Perkins opened his own oyster house on Fish Street (now Maple Avenue) in Chestertown known as the Rising Sun Saloon.4 Perkins’ early advertisements for the Rising Sun Saloon draw on his family’s superior reputation as restaurateurs.  He advertises in the October 12, 1856 issue of The Kent News that “all who have eaten any oysters served up by my father or myself, know that they ‘can’t be beat.” 5 His restaurant menu also included crabs, terrapins, beef-stakes, fried ham, cake, ice-cream,  and all the "delicacies of the season."6  He also notes that will supply families with oysters, ice-cream, frozen custards, and ice "by the gallon, and on reasonable terms. His business proved an incredible success and according to his obituary in the Chestertown Transcript “because of the excellence of his meals, particularly his oysters, ‘The Rising Sun Saloon’ became notorious throughout the state.”7 When the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet returned to Chestertown he is noted as dinning with Perkins whom Garnet describes as “a splendid type of an old fashioned Southern black gentleman.”8 In addition to his restaurant Perkins engaged in other enterprises involving lumber, coal, and ice.  His ice business received converge from the Baltimore Sun which reported in its April 19, 1869 issue that “William Perkins, an enterprising colored man…has imported a cargo of 182 tons of ice, from Portland, Maine, at a cost of $1,200. The ice is of excellent quality.”9  

His businesses earned him a considerable fortune for his time, his obituary notes that at one time his wealth was valued between $10,000 and $12,000.10  His wealth is also recorded in the U.S. Federal Censuses.  The 1860 U.S. Federal Census records that he was a restaurant keeper, and owned $1,700 in real estate and $700 in personal property. 11 The 1870 U.S. Federal Census records that he owned an oyster and ice cream saloon, and owned $6,000 in real estate and $4,000 in personal property.12  The 1880 U.S. Federal Census records that he owned an oyster and ice cream saloon.13

Perkins was well-respected in Chestertown as a successful businessman but to the rest of the state he was known as an advocate for civil rights, education, and the political involvement of African-Americans.  As early as 1849 he is listed as a trustee of the First Beneficial Society of Chestertown.14  In 1852, he travelled to Baltimore with fellow black businessmen from Chestertown, James A. Jones, Isaac Anderson, and Levi Rogers to serve as delegates to the Convention of Free Colored People in the State of Maryland.15 Perkins took an active role at the convention which was called to discuss the African-American community’s stance on colonization.  On the first day of the convention he addressed delegates from Dorchester County who threatened to leave the convention. Perkins addressed “falsely circulated” reports that the Colonization Society had paid delegates to support certain measures at the convention but Perkins assured them that this accusation was false and expressed his hope that the delegates would remain at the convention.16  On the second day of the convention he was appointed to the platform committee.  Perkins later defended the platform proposed by the committee in an exchange with Fredrick Harris of Baltimore. The Baltimore Sun’s report on the second day’s proceedings record Perkins as saying  "the only platform they recommended for adoption, left it to every man to go where he pleased, or to remain here if it suited him better. Let Mr. Harris go to his constituents and tell them that the convention only recommended what it thought best; its action was binding on no man.”17 The Baltimore Sun reports that on the third day of the convention “Perkins spoke of the law enforced in Kent, by which the children of free colored persons, whom the officers decided the parents were unable to support, were bound out; and also of the law which prohibited a colored person returning to the State if he should happen to leave it. They were oppressed and borne down.”18  Perkins' fellow delegate from Kent County, James A. Jones, responded stating that he “thought his native county equal to any other in the State, and that colored persons were not more oppressed there than elsewhere in the State.”19

Perkins emerges as an influential civil rights, education, and political leader in the decades following the Civil War. In 1865, he served an agent for the Freedmen’s Bureau.20  In his November 1, 1865 letter to John T. Gaham contained in the First Annual Report of the Baltimore Association he writes:

 “I went to Centerville yesterday according to your request.  I met... a small congregation [at Spanish Neck Church], and found them anxious for a school... I left Spanish Neck Church at 2 o'clock and went to Centerville, found a small congregation there still more anxious for a school and had been ready for the last six weeks... I left Centerville at 5: 30 P.M., arriving at Salem at 8 P.M., met a pretty large congregation there, [and] found them very anxious for a school.”21

In 1870, Perkins served as the chief marshal of Kent County’s celebration of the Fifthteenth Amendment where the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet delivered the  prayer.22 Later in 1870, Perkins spoke at a political rally for Kent County’s black citizens where he was proclaimed by the Chestertown Transcript as the “negro orator of the county.”23 The Transcript reports unfavorably on the white speakers at the event but praises Perkins’ speech as “the most sensible, practical, and honest of the occasion.”24

In February of 1872, Perkins, Wesley J. Parker, R.H. Robinson, and Henry W. Martin were appointed the first black trustees of the Centenary Biblical Institute, now Morgan State University.25  Later in 1872, Perkins served as a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Journal Association of Kent County. 26 The Journal Association of Kent County published the short-lived Freedman’s Journal, a paper that was first published in 1868 by R. Clay Crawford. 27  He fulfilled his duties as the “negro orator of the county” once more on Decoration Day, later called Memorial Day, in 1883 when he addressed members of the Charles Sumner Post No. 25 G.A.R. at William Perkins Hall in Chestertown. 28 Perkins was politically active until his death, his obituary notes that he served as a delegate to numerous local and state conventions, and was a delegate to Republican National Convention that nominated Rutherford B. Hayes.29 In 1889, the Baltimore Sun reported Perkins, "the well-known colored republican politician of Kent County," expected to receive a government appointment. 30 He later received an appointment in the Custom House at Baltimore in 1890.31

 Perkins served as a trustee of a congregation which was referenced in early records as the Methodist African Church Zion, and the Methodist Episcopal Church of the Colored People of Chestertown. 32 He is listed as a trustee in 1879 when the congregation officially incorporated itself as the Janes Methodist Episcopal Church.33  He was elected by the Delaware Conference as a lay delegate to the 1876 and 1884 General Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church.34

The U.S. Censuses record that he was married to Francis Ann "Fannie" Perkins for at least thrity years.    According to his obituary in the Chestertown Transcript, the businesses which afforded him his wealth eventually waned because of too many interested until “finally his very snug fortune was entirely swept away.” Despite, his unfortunate demise in Baltimore, Perkins lived a life worthy the Transcript’s epitaph in his obituary which called him “The Most Prominent Leader of His Race in the State.”35  Perkins died in 1895 at the Home for Aged Colored People on Lee Street in Baltimore.36

Footnotes:

1. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (The Chestertown Transcript) [MSA SC 3326] “William Perkins Dead,” The Chestertown Transcript, May 9, 1895.

2. Lucy Maddox, “‘A Liberal Share of Public Patronage’: Chestertown’s Antebellum Black Businesses,” Key to Old Kent, 5 (no. 1, 2011): 23-31.

3. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (Kent News) [MSA SC 2901] “New Oyster House,” The Kent News, March 28, 1846.

4. Maddox, “‘A Liberal Share of Public Patronage’: Chestertown’s Antebellum Black Businesses.”

5. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (Kent News) [MSA SC 2901 SCM] “Oysters! Oysters!! The Rising Sun Just Opened,” The Kent News, October 11, 1856.

6. An Illustrated Atlas of Kent and Queen Anne Counties, Maryland, (Philadelphia : Lake, Griffing & Stevenson, 1877).

Maryland Historical Trust, “John Reid House” accessed July 31, 2012, http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/stagsere/se1/se5/027000/027700/027795/pdf/msa_se5_27795.pdf.

7. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (The Chestertown Transcript) [MSA SC 3326] “William Perkins Dead,” The Chestertown Transcript, May 9, 1895.

8. Herbert George Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977) 258.

9. "Affairs in Kent County" The Baltimore Sun, April 18, 1869. 

10. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (The Chestertown Transcript) [MSA SC 3326] “William Perkins Dead,” The Chestertown Transcript, May 9, 1895.

11. U.S. CENSUS BUREAU (Census Record, MD) 1860 [MSA SM61-212] Kent County, Chestertown, Page 180. 

12. U.S. CENSUS BUREAU (Census Record, MD) 1870 [MSA SM 61-274] Kent  County, Chestertown 4th Election District, Page 172.

13. U.S. CENSUS BUREAU (Census Record, MD) 1880 [MSA SM61-323] Kent  County, Chestertown, Page 123.

14. KENT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) [MSA CE 118-54] JR 1, p. 27.

15. "Colored Colonization Convention," The Baltimore Sun, July 27, 1852.

16. Ibid.

17. "The Free Colored People's Convention, The Baltimore Sun, July 28, 1852.

18. "The Free Colored People's Convention, The Baltimore Sun, July 29, 1852

19. Ibid.

20. Pauls A. Cimbala and Randall, eds. The Freedmen's Bureau and Reconstruction: Reconsiderations, (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999) 192-193

21. Ibid.

22. “Celebration of the Fifthteenth Amendment in Kent Count” The Sun, April 21, 1870.

23. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (The Transcript) [MSA SC 3326] The Chestertown Transcript, September 17, 1870.

24. Ibid.

25. CENTENARY BIBLICAL INSTITUTE (Minutes) 1866-1890 [MSA SM109] February 12, 1872.

26. KENT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Charter Record) 1869-1898 [MSA CM648-1] Book 1, Page 50.

27. “Then & Now Republican 'Journal' started after Civil War June 23” MyEasternShore, accessed July 31, 2012, http://www.myeasternshoremd.com/opinion/article_d81e44c1-4595-5a9d-ac15-622b502d9b7f.html.

28. John Lang, ed., Here on the Chester: Washington College remembers old Chestertown, (Chestertown: Literary House Press of Washington College) 147, accessed July 31, 2012, http://archive.org/stream/hereonchesterwas00lang#page/146/mode/2up.

29. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (The Chestertown Transcript) [MSA SC 3326] “William Perkins Dead,” The Chestertown Transcript, May 9, 1895.

30. "Thinks Blaine Will Take Care of Him" The Baltimore Sun, February 15, 1889.

31. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (The Chestertown Transcript) [MSA SC 3326] “William Perkins Dead,” The Chestertown Transcript, May 9, 1895.

32. KENT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) [MSA CE 57-10] JKH 4, pp. 692 - 693.

    KENT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Land Records) [MSA CE 57-30] SB 7, pp. 347 - 348.

33. KENT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT (Charter Record) 1869-1898 [MSA CM648-1] Book 1, Page 115.

34. George W. Woodruff, ed, Journal of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church held in Baltimore, Md., May 1-31, 1876 (New York: Nelson & Phillips, 1876), 144, accessed July 31, 2012, http://archive.org/stream/journalofgeneral08meth#page/144/mode/2up.

    David S. Monroe, Journal of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, held in Philadelphia, Pa., May 1-28, 1884 (New York, Phillips & Hunt, 1884), 4, accessed July 31, 2012, http://archive.org/stream/journalsofgenera00meth#page/n7/mode/2up.

36. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (The Chestertown Transcript) [MSA SC 3326] “William Perkins Dead,” The Chestertown Transcript, May 9, 1895.

36. "Death of a Colored Politician" The Baltimore Sun, May 6, 1895.


Written by Christian Savage, Winter Intern, 2013.

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