Caroline Thacher & the Rev. John Philander Perry

Henry Thacher, son of Peter, organized the second temperance society in America.  He was a prominent man in Yarmouth, Massachusetts and was a representative to the General Court at Boston.  He married Elizabeth Gray of Yarmouth on Nov. 25, 1802. Elizabeth was the daughter of Capt. Joshua Gray, who commanded a company of minute men which marched towards Marshfield in 1775, and his wife Mary Hedge.

Henry and Elizabeth Thacher had 12 children, but only 4 would live long enough to marry.

1. Eliza Jane born July 25, 1803 married Nathaniel S. Simpkins May, 1824.  She died Aug. 30, 1836 at age 33, just 2 months after the birth of her 4th child. 
2. Henry Gray born April, 1805, was a storekeeper and died unmarried at age 27 on Jan. 10, 1833.
3. Winslow Lewis born June 27, 1807, also an unmarried storekeeper, died Apr. 14, 1834 at age 26.
4. Mary Burr born Nov. 7, 1809 died Nov. 9, 1827 at age 18.
5. Sally born Dec. 22, 1811 died Mar. 19, 1826 at age 14.
6. Maria Edith born April, 1814 died unmarried at age 23 on Aug. 31, 1837.
7. George born Dec. 7, 1816 died Dec. 31, 1835 when he was 19.
8. Thomas born June 19, 1819 married (1) Mary Gorham Hallett (2) Catherine Worcester and lived to age 77.  He died May 15, 1897.
9. Charles born Dec. 2, 1821, died at age 32 months and 20 days, Aug. 21, 1824.
10. Caroline, the subject of this blog, was a twin.  She was born Oct. 6, 1824, married Rev. John Philander Perry and died at age 43 years in April, 1868 of consumption. 
11. Cornelia her twin, born Oct. 6, 1824 died at age 21 months on July 20, 1826. 
12. Charles, the youngest was born Oct. 6, 1829 and baptized Charles Thacher but after the death of his brother, Henry Gray Thacher and his father Henry Thacher, both who died in 1833, his name was changed to Henry Charles Thatcher by the Massachusetts Legislature. He married Martha Bray and died at age 70 on Apr. 28, 1900. 

Caroline lived in Yarmouth and Boston, Massachusetts.  Before her marriage she was an author of children’s books, one which was entitled Morning Ride.  When she was twenty-eight she married the Rev. John Philander Perry of New Ipswich, New Hampshire.  They were married by the Rev. Thomas Worcester in Boston, on April 28, 1853.

John Philander Perry born Feb. 23, 1819, was the son of Chauncey Perry and Abigail Stearns.  Four of their sons became clergymen and two became lawyers in Brooklyn, New York.  “Their aged father, having assisted his sons to a liberal education, could review with proud satisfaction their honorable careers.”

John Philander, though hampered by imperfect eyesight, graduated Dartmouth College in 1842.

After their marriage the couple lived in Yarmouthport. In 1853 Rev. Perry was settled as pastor of the Swedenborgian Church at Yarmouthport, Massachusetts, where he remained until his retirement in 1870.

The Rev. John Philander and Caroline (Thacher) Perry had 2 sons.

Infant son / still born Jan. 20, 1854
Infant son / still born May 22, 1855.

John Perry was apparently an acquaintance of Ralph Waldo Emerson.  I found this in The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1860-1869 ... 

To John Philander Perry, September 17, 1861

Concord
17 September 1861

Dear Sir,
I have received your note containing your kind and hospitable invitation that I should come to your house on the 27th instant, which I accept with much pleasure.

With thanks,

Yours respectfully,

R.W. Emerson

The addressee is the Reverend John Philander Perry, first minister of the Society of the New Jerusalem and a director of the Union Library, which was apparently also a club (History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, ed. Simeon L. Deyo). The letter was originally owned by Perry's granddaughter, Margaret P. Stimmel.

This photograph of Carrie Thacher is dated June 1862.  She is 38 years old and looks ill, but she would live another 5 years.

 

The photograph of J. P. Perry is taken a couple of years later in 1864, when he would have been 45.

Caroline died of consumption in Yarmouth, Massachusetts in April of 1868, at age 43 years 5 mos. and 27 days.

John Philander Perry married a 2nd time to Emma Rusch, born circa 1835 in Elsinore, Denmark.
They had 3 children; 2 sons and 1 daughter:

1. John Cromwell born Dec. 29, 1870 married Feb. 21, 1899, to Ester C. Skinner and resided in Los Angeles, CA. (4 children) 
2. Chauncey Rusch born May 6, 1872 married Jun. 21, 1896, to Mabel Tuttle. (4 children) 
3. Emily Stearns born Dec. 18, 1873.  She was an artist and lived in Los Angeles, CA.

John Perry’s later years were passed in “the place most dear to him,” New Ipswich, NH.  He died July 30, 1886 in New Ipswich, Hillsborough, NH, at age 67.

Note:  Of special interest were these items passed down through the Thacher family that are mentioned in Frederick Freeman’s book The History of Cape Cod (1862) …

“Relics are less frequently found among the representatives of ancient families on the Cape than might be expected; but we recollect having seen with in a few years, at the house of Mrs. Peter Thacher, a cradle about 200 years old, ingeniously made of oak by Col. John Thacher, a father of 21 children; and also the scarlet blanket in which the infant of Mr. Anthony Thatcher was wrapped when drowned by the wreck at Thacher’s island near Newburyport, in 1635.  The cradle and blanket above referred to were left by will to Peter Thatcher of Hyannis, MA., and by him were disposed to Mr. *Henry C. Thacher of Yarmouth, MA.”

*Henry Charles Thacher was the youngest brother of Caroline.


Sources:

• The History of Cape Cod by Frederick Freeman
• Thacher - Thatcher genealogy
• Genealogy, and biographical sketches of the descedants of Thomas and Anthony Thacher by David W. Allen
• The NY Genealogical and Biographical Record Vol. 45
• The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1860-1869 by Ralph Waldo Emerson