The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

ZR ------ tt ms et ge REN 14 - PORT PERRY STAR - Wednesday, October 14, 1992 by Paul Arculus Introduction: On November 14 this year, the Port Perry area will partici- pate in the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter Perry. In order to help residents bet- ter understand the man who founded Port Perry, Paul Arcu- lus, president of the Lake Scu- gog Historical Society has pre- pared three articles on the life of Peter Perry which will be published in the Port Perry Star over the next three weeks. The first of these articles fol- lows on this page. x kx e PETER PERRY BACKGROUND AND EARLY YEARS - 1792-1825. The name of Peter Perry rais- es little curiosity in the minds of most Canadians. In spite of his signicant contributions to the growth and development of our nation, he was completely over- shadowed by more outspoken or dramatic contemporaries, nota- bly William Lyon Mackenzie, Edgar Ryerson and Robert Baldwin. Perry founded Port Perry, developed its first busi- ness enterprises, and drew up its first town plan. He also brought Whitby from a small cluster of buildings to a large town, was the first to propose a railway to link Whitby with Lake Scugog and established and developed the Whitby to Lake Scugog Road (now High- way 12). But probably his most important contributions lay in the area of the fight for respon- sible government in the 1830's and, later, his desire to estab- lish Ontario County (the major partofwhatis now Durham Re- gion) as a separate municipality from York. Unfortunately, few people know of the importance of this man, and information about him 13 not always easy to find. BACKGROUND Peter Perrys family back- ground 1s that of the consum- mate, inspirational, loyahsttra- dition. His ancestor, (great, great, great, grandfather, An- thony Perry) had come to Mas sachusetts from England in 1640. Peter Perry's father, Rob- ert, born in Massachusetts, had moved to Vermont in 1772. When the American Revolution broke out, Robert fought against the Independence movement, maintaining his loy- alty to the crown and the demo- cratic ideals it symbolized. He campaigned in the Queen's Loy- al Rangers and Jessup's Rang- ers against the Revolutionists THE LOYALISTS It has been estimated that only a third of the population of the Thirteen Colonies support- ed the Independence move- ment, indeed, at least one third supported the British. When the war was over, those who had spoken in favour of loyalty to the crown were subjected to severe persecution. In spite of guarantees of protection, the government of the young Re- public had little or no control over its people. Mobs looted and pillaged the homes and proper- ty of the Loyalists. Robert Perry and his small family joined the PETER PERRY nearly 40,000 who headed north to Canada to maintain their ties with Britain and the stability and security it repre- sented. Many of the Loyalists were not of English background, only a half could trace their origins to England. The largest ethnic group of Loyalists to come to what is now Ontario were of German background. Of the re- mainder who came to Canada, most were Scottish, others were Irish, Dutch, Swiss, Swedish, French, Native peoples and sev- eral thousand Blacks. This di- verse group headed north to vir- tually double the population of whatis now Canada. SETTLING INADDINGTON The majority of the Loyalists settled in Nova Scotia, however a large number settled along the shores of the St. Lawrence. The latter were mainly those who had fought with Jessup's Rangers. They were given land in sparsely settled Lennox, Ad- dington, Grenville, Dundas, Stormont and Glengarry Counties. Robert Perry acquired prop- erty just west of what is now the village of Bath near Napanee in Addington County. He and his wife Jemima raised their eight children (five boys and three girls)on this farm. PETER PERRY ARRIVES On November 14,1792, in her farmhouse, Jemima Perry gave birth to her sixth child. She and Robert named him Peter. The boy was. raised in an environ- ment which included long hours of physical labour as the family struggled to establish their farm. Probably more important- ly for the formation of Peter's fu- ture political life, his parents hosted many of the leading thinkers of the day including several controversial visitors. One such visitor was Charles Justin McCarty a Methodist preacher. The Church of Eng- land was the only legally recog- nized church at the time and 1t was difficult to preach any oth- er faith, indeed, only marriages performed by Anglican minis- ters were legally recognized. McCarty was jailed on several occasions for preaching his Methodist beliefs. The last time he was arrested and jailed, Rob- ert Perry paid his bail and ral- lied support for his defence. Nevertheless poor McCarty was banished from the district in July 1790. Two years later McCarty's cause was vindicated and regular Methodist meet- ings were held with no fear of re- prisals for its preachers. How- ever it wasn't until 1831 that marriages performed by Metho- dist ministers were recognized. EDUCATION Typical of most of his contem- poraries, there is no indication that Peter had any formal schooling outside the home. Formal education was also a part of the religious controver- sary as all schools at that time were run by the Anglican Church and were out of bounds to non-Anglicans. However, most of the earliest pioneers had a far more urgent priority in the first few years of their ar- rival in this vast wilderness: ba- gic survival. Land clearing, house building and the creation of a communication system man who founded P ort P erry whereby food and other essen- tial commodities could be ob- tained usually occupied the first decade or so of the pioneers life here. MARRIAGE In the next county, (Frede- ricksburgh) just over a mile away, another Loyalist, John Ham, had settled and raised his family. His daughter Mary at- tracted Peter Perry's attention and, on June 19, 1814, they were married in the Presbyteri- an church. Typical of their con- temporaries, they wasted no time in establishing a large family. In 1815 their first child, Cinderella was born. She was the first of nine children the Perrys were to have. Their first five children were girls. As the son of a Loyalist Peter Perry was entitled to a grant of land upon reaching the age of majority. He applied for his en- titlement and it was granted to him in 1819, the year that we have the first evidence of Peter Perry's direct involvement in the political life of Upper Cana- da. EARLY POLITICS In 1819 Peter Perry's signa- ture appeared on a document which rejected Robert Gour- lay's condemnation of the sys- tem of government in Upper Canada. Throughout his life Perry maintained his loyalty to the British system of Parlia- mentary democracy. Peter Perry's leadership in political affairs appears to emerge in 1823. In this year the name of Marshall Spring Bid- well was excluded from the bal- lot in a by-election in Lennox and Addington. Bidwell had been an outspoken critic of the policies of the appointed Execu- tive Council, but the reason giv- en for excluding his name from the ballot was that he was the son of an American. This action it its somewhat absurd justification provoked Perry into leading a protest. Many of the settlers were sons of Loyalists born in America, as was Perry himself. Perry decaid- ed to join Bidwell in the election of 1824 to try to gain seats in the Assembly to give support to the newly organized Reform Party which had as one of its imme- dite objectives the passing of.a low to protect the right of Loyal- ist settlers to become members of the Assembly. Bidwell and Perry topped the 1824 polls for the County and prepared to take their seats in January 1825. GOVERNMENT OF THE DAY Each of the colonies in British North America; Upper Canada (Ontario), Lower Canada (Que- bec), New Brunswick, Nova Sco- tia and Prince Edward Island, had a governing assembly. The elected members made up the Legislative Assembly, but the real power resided in the Legis- lative Council and the Execu- tive Council. These two bodies were appointed by the Governor on the advice of Executive Council Members. The Govern- ors were appointed by the Colo- nial Office in England which had little interest in the small, remote colony. For this reason, many of the Governors were ap- pointed for questionable rea- > 80Nns. Competent or not each newly arrived Governor had to rely on the advice of the members of the Executive Council in order to make new appointments to that Council or to the Legislative Countil. The two appointed bod- ies were made up of wealthy business men and higher clergy of the Church of England. When members retired or died, the re- maining members, in order to perpetuate their control natu- rally made sure that new mem- bers were of the same ruling group. In Upper Canada this group was refered to as the Family Compact. In Lower Can- ada they were appropriately named the Chateau Clique. Lit- tle could be done to dislodge these oligarchies. REFORM PARTY The Reform Party arose as an attempt to bring about a more responsible attitude to the gov- erning bodies. The elected As- sembly passed laws and levied taxes, however the appointed Councils could change or over- rule the recommendations of the elected body. Bidwell and Perry had a major task ahead of them. Next Week PAUL ARCULUS WRITES ABOUT PETER PERRY'S LIFE IN POLITICS AND SOME OF HIS EARLY BUSINESS VENTURES