Saturday, April 20, 2013

Cpl. Frank B. Perkins


Cpl. Frank B. Perkins

   Settled in Elgin in 1841.
   Attended the Elgin Academy.
   Listed on the 1860 Federal Census #314/2319 as an 18 year old Medical Student living in Elgin, Ill's.
Elgin Union Grays
   Enlisted Aug. 8, 1861
A Co. 36th Ill. Vol. Inf.
Fox River Regiment
Steedman's Brigade
Sheridan's Division
Fourth Corps

   Notice: Sept. 11, 1861 issue Elgin's Weekly Gazette.
   With the Fox River Regiment, in camp below Aurora, all our readers are well acquainted.  From the moment of its conception to the present hour it has gone right on to a full and complete success.  It is now 1200 strong and will, no doubt, be ordered to St. Louis in a few days there to be equipped and put into the Grand Army.

   Mustered In Sept. 23, 1861 at Camp Hammond in Montgomery, Ill's.
   Home of record listed as Elgin, Ill's.
   Issued .577 1857 P-53 Enfield Rifled musket.

   Excerpt from Grandfather Was a Drummer Boy, diary of Charles Stiles.
   Dec. 25, 1861
      We arose late, it being about 7 o'clock, and did not get breakfast until nearly 8 o'clock.  After breakfast we employed ourselves reading, talking, and running about until nearly noon when Mrs. Buck sent for us to come to her tent.  We went down and found a bundle for each of us from home.  After taking them to our tents we opened them and found pies, cakes, apples, butter, tippets, and wristlets.  After investigating all the boxes we went into town and bought oysters and cut up generally.  After getting what we wanted, we came back and prepared dinner which consisted of 3 roasted chickens, mashed potatoes, and some apple pies made by Frank Perkins.  After dinner I went out to a shooting match just outside the lines and saw a few chickens shot.  At 9 o'clock we had an oyst4er supper.  While we were eating the taps were beaten but (if the court knows herself and she thinks she do) we did not take much notice of it.  After supper we had some music and lots of fun.  We retired at `11 o'clock.

   Excerpt from Grandfather Was a Drummer Boy, diary of Charles Stiles.
   Jan. 27, 1862
      Today Frank Perkins and I visited a secesh woman whose husband is a major in the rebel army.  We fixed her daughter's melodeon which had something in two of the reeds.  The girl is a redhead about 13 years old.  Frank loves to play on a melodeon and he had quite a treat.  The girl sang southern dixie and talked secesh up to the handle.  Her little sister, a small babe, is named Jennie Rich Wood.

   Transferred June 9, 1862.


? Co. 52nd Ill. Vol. Inf.
Three Years Service
The Lincoln Regiment

   Excerpt from Grandfather Was a Drummer Boy, diary of Charles Stiles.
    July 6, 1862
      Mother seems to think that Frank Perkins thinks more of Dr. Winchester than you (Father), or he would not have made the change.  He certainly did but I know not his opinions at present.  I know he is dissatisfied and knew before he went that he would be.  He is hospital steward and thought that would be a good place to study medicine.  That was one reason he went.  He is not satisfied but, having gone so far he dislikes to retrace his steps.  Before he was transferred, (I think) here was a general order issued prohibiting transfers but I resume he will be allowed to remain.

   Excerpt from Grandfather Was a Drummer Boy, diary of Charles Stiles.
   June 18, 1862
      Frank Perkins has left us.  He has been transferred to the 52nd through the influence of Dr. Winchester.  The Elgin boys are all well.  Our regiment is to get ne4w arms if they are to be had.  That looks as if we were to stay some time.

   Excerpt from Grandfather Was a Drummer Boy, diary of Charles Stiles.
   July 21, 1862
      John Long arrived today from home with letters for the boys.  Capt. Brown, Lt. Davidson, and Frank Perkins came up from the 52nd.  Fred Raymond went home today to recruit for the regiment.  The Elgin boys are in good health.

  Excerpt from Grandfather was a Drummer Boy, diary of Charles Stiles.
   Sept. 19, 1864
      This morning I started for the 127th to visit Nelson Merrill.  On the road I met Frank Perkins.  Found Nelson well, also several other old acquaintances.  The prisoners taken July 22nd from the 15th A. C. were exchanged this evening. 

Known Actions;
Leetown, Ark.. March 7, 1862
Pea Ridge, Ark. March 8, 1862

Post war;
   Member Elgin GAR Post #260.
   Foreman at the Watch Factory in the Dial Room.
   Joined Elgin GAR Veteran's Post #49 July 1, 1884.
   Deacon at the First Congregational Church.
   Resided at 463 East Chicago St.
   Listed on the 1900 Census as a 58 year old Sec. Board of Education from New York.  He could read and write English.  He lived in Elgin, Ill.

   Article; excerpts from Feb. 5, 1915 issue of The Elgin Daily News.
      Falls on the glare ice of sidewalks and streets claimed three well knwon Elgin men as victims yesterday and this morning.
      Frank B. Perkins, secretary of the board of education, fell at 3:30 o'clock yesterday afternoon on Fountain square near the First National bank.  He pulled loos a tendon in his left shoulder and according to his physician, Dr. E. H. Abbott, he will be unable to use his arm for some time.  He is confined to his home.
      F. B. Perkins and Colnel Smalles are both veterans of the civil war, boath having been prominent members of the 36th Illinois regiment, and are both active in G.A.R. work.

   Article; Dec. 1, 1936 unidentified Elgin cutting.
   Frank B. Perkins, 95 year old Civil war veteran who resides at 463 E. Chicago st., is the new commander of Elgin post 49, Grand Army of the Republic.  He succeeds the late Walter H. Kimball, who died recently in his 98th year.
   Elgin post at one time had a membership of 443 war veterans.  Today one three remain.
   In addition to Mr. Perkins, the surviving members are Howard S. Lamb, 10 S. Geneva st., and DeVolis W. Stevens of Wasco.  George R. Thompson, a son of a union  veteran, is acting post adjutant.
   The late W. D. Ellis was post commander prior to occupancy of the office by Mr. Kimball.
   Commander Perkins served in Company A. 36th Illinois infantry and was in Sherman's army that marched to the sea.  He is member No. 129 of Elgin post, having joined the G.A.R. on July 1, 1884.  Stevens is member No. 195, his date of joining the organization being Dec. 1, 1885.  Stevens served in the New York infantry.  Mr. lamb, who will celebrate his ninety-seventh birthday on Thursday, served in the Civil war with an Ohio infantry company.  He was member No. 425 of the local post, being admitted to the G.A.R. on march 18, 1919.
   Elgin's G.A.R. post was originally organized as the Sam G. Ward post 18 in July, 1874.  Twenty-three men were charter members, and Walter S. Joslyn was the first post commander.

   Obit; Jan. 18, 1937 issue of The Elgin Courier-News.
   Pioneer, patriot, and civic worker, Mr. Perkins succumbed to a heart ailment at Sherman hospital, where he had been a patient since last Tuesday.  He made his home of recent months at 463 E. Chicago St.
   The funeral service for teh Civil war veteran and lifelong resident of Elgin and its vicinity will be held tomorrow afternoon at 2 from the Norris mortuary.  The Rev. Alexander Milmine, pastor of the First Congregational church, will officiate, and burial will be in Bluff City cemetery.
   Mr. Perkins life had paralleled the growth of Elgin from a frontier hamlet to a modern city and through the years he had been identified with many worthy phases of community upbuilding.  He was particularly active in arrangements a year and a half ago for Elgin's centennial, and was considered one of the foremost students of pioneer history in this region.
   In excellent health for a man of his years, Mr. Perkins had led an active life up to the time of his last illness.  He was a familiar figure on downtown streets, and played a prominent role in each succeeding city-wide observance of Memorial day.
   Mr. Perkins was born july 8, 1841 in a log cabin on what is now Higgins road, a few miles northeast of this city.  His father, Thomas Perkins, came from Massachusetts in 1838 and staked a government claim near the present community of Barrington.
   As a youth of 15, Mr. Perkins enrolled in the first class at Elgin Academy, in 1856, and subsequently completed his education at Beloit college, of which he was one of the oldest living alumni.
   He served with distinction in the Civil war, as a member of Company A of the Thirty-sixth Illinois, and participated in General Sherman's memorable march to the sea.
   Returning to Elgin after the war he entered the employ of the Elgin national Watch co., and for several years was foreman of the dial room at the big plant.  Later he quit the factory to accept the position of secretary of the board of education, an office he held for a 20-year period.  About 25 years ago he retired from active work and had since devoted his time to church and veterans association activities, and to his study of pioneer history.
   Mr. Perkins was commander of Veterans post 49, Grand Army of the Republic, having been elected to the position little more than a month ago.  He had always insisted that the post would never surrender its charger, so long as a single veteran lived to carry on.
   For many years he was active in affairs of the first Congregational church, serving as a deacon of the congregation.  Of recent years he had been honored with the position of deacon emeritus of the church.
   He was married to Mary E. Raymond, member of a pioneer Elgin family, in 1869.  She died in 1873.
   A son, Thomas E. Perkins, widely known Elgin musician, and a grandson, Alfred J. Perkins of Flint, Mich., are the only immediate survivors.  Mrs. William Goodrow and Miss Mary B. Downs of Oak Park are nieces, and George Perkins of Chicago is a nephew.

   Article; Jan. 18, 1937, page 3, issue of The Elgin Courier-News.
   Few if any native born residents of the Fox river valley were closer to the pioneer history of this region than Frank B. Perkins.'
   The Civil war veteran liked nothing better than to reminisce of the days when Elgin was young, when girls in crinoline and boys in homespun jeans first answered the call to higher learning as Elgin Academy opened its doors in 1856, and of those stirring times in '61 when President Lincoln's plea for volunteers sent thousands of boys in blue away to war.
   Mr. Perkins was a member of the throng thay jammed the Chicago Wigwam on that day in 1860 when Lincoln was nominated for the presidency--in fact, the Eliginite often recalled, he was almost crushed by the surging crowd which hailed the nomination of the rail-splitter.
   Possessed of a keen memory for detail, Mr. Perkins was a stickler for accuracy when it came to describing the pioneer scene.  An incident of just a few months ago illustrates this point.
   With painstaking effort he had constructed a model of the log cabon home in which he was born in 1841.  It was constructed to scale and would have done credit to a skilled craftsman.
   Calling a Courier-News reporter to his home, Mr. Perkins proudly displayed his handiwork and then good-naturedly, took the Elgin centennial cabin committe to task for the replica of James T. Gifford's cabin which had been erected at Villa and Fulton streets.  "James T. Gifford built this kind of a cabin," he said, exhibiting the model he had constructed.  "It was not like the one which stands on 'villa street.  I know, for a pioneer who visited in the original cabin once described it minutely to me."
   Mr. Perkins often remarked that a rash act in teh early days of teh rebellion did more to arouse feeling against the south and to doom the cause of the confederacy than any other single factor.  He referred to the wanton killing of Col. Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth, dashing young northern officer, a personal friend of President Lincoln, and nationally known at the time as commander of the Chicago Zouaves.
   The Zouaves were considered the best body of marching men ever assembled, and were known throughout the nation for their proficiency in the art of drill maneuvers.  Ellsworth had at the time drilled the Elgin Continentals, and was well known in this city.
   He was shot to death in Alexandria, Va., by an enraged southern sympathizer who had just witnessed the young officer haul down a Confederate flag.
   "Ellsworth's death was like an electric shock throughout the north," Mr. Perkins said.  "It started a wave of volunteering that swept the north and gave President Lincoln the necessary man power to eventually crush the rebellion.  In my opinion the killing of Colonel Ellsworth did more than any other one thing to awaken the north to the truth of the situation, to the fact that the union was in grave danger, and needed to protection of every loyal citizen."
   Elgin and Kane county never had to resort to the draft to raise its quota of men for Civil war service, Mr. Perkins recalled.  Lt. Col. Edward S. Joslyn, he said, went up and down the county pleading for young men to enlist and his gift of oratory kept enlistments up to quota at all times.
   "George F. Wheeler was the first Elgin soldier to place his name on the muster roll whe Company A of the Seventh Illinois--the Continentals--was organized for service after Sumpter had been fired upon," Mr. Perkins said.  "Walter H. Kimball (who died last fall) was the first Illinois solder mustered into federal service in the war.
   Mr. Perkins remembered when Veteran post 49 of the Grand Army numbered 443 members.  Today two post members remain: Howard S. Lamb, 10 S. Geneva st., and DeVolois W. Stevens of Wasco.
   He also liked to dwell upon the early days at the School on the Hill, which he attended the first year it opened.
   "I was the first youngster to ring the old bell when it was installed in the spring of '57," he recently told a group of alumni.

   Buried at Bluff City Cemetery in Elgin, Ill.

Used with permission Elgin Area Hist. Soc.

Used with permission Dan Mallett
Many members of Post #49 Sewed watch faces to their ribbons to show they were from Elgin.

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