James Woodbury Perkins

James Woodbury Perkins, Jr., (September 16, 1840 – August 18, 1892) was an American businessman and Republican politician. He was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing Adams and Marquette counties in the 1885 and 1887 sessions. As a young man, he served in the Union Army through the entire American Civil War.

Biography James W. Perkins, Jr., was born in Warner, New Hampshire, on September 16, 1840. He received an academic education and moved to Wisconsin in 1857, settling at New Chester, in Adams County.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Perkins volunteered for service in the Union Army. On September 6, 1861, he was enrolled as a private in Company H of the 11th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. With the 11th Wisconsin Infantry, he participated in the fighting in the western theater of the war, and was involved in several of the important battles of the Vicksburg campaign. During the 1887 session, he served as chairman of the committee on charitable and penal institutions.

Personal life and family James Perkins' father, James Woodbury Perkins, Sr., was a physician and Christian minister. The Perkins family were direct descendants of John Perkins, a British colonist from Gloucestershire who settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631.

James Perkins, Jr., married twice. His first wife was Mary A. Atkins of Milton, Wisconsin. They married on January 1, 1866, and had at least four children before her death in 1874. Perkins then married Martha M. Keller of Philadelphia on November 8, 1874, and had at least three more children, though two of those (twins) died in infancy.

Electoral history Wisconsin Assembly (1884, 1886)