Descendants of John and Judith Gator Perkins of Ipswich

William Perkins was one of the twelve men who came with John Winthrop, the younger, and commenced the settlement of Ipswich in 1633. He was later in Gloucester, where he preached, and in Topsfield in 1655. Isaac Perkins was an inhabitant of Ipswich and died before 1639.

John Perkins, who identified himself as “the Elder,” and his wife Judith Gator were the immigrant ancestors of the Ipswich Perkins family from the mother country. They and their children sailed from Bristol, England, on December 1, 1630, on the ship Lyon, bound for Boston. He was granted a lot on East St. at the intersection of Jeffreys Neck Road in 1634, and acquired additional land on Manning’s Neck (Newmarch St.)

The children of John Perkins and his wife Judith Gator included John (who identified himself as “Quartermaster”), Abraham, Jacob, Thomas, Elizabeth Sargent, Anna Bradbury, and Lydia Bennett. As adults, the second generation expanded the family to other parts of Essex County, including Chebacco Parish (now Essex) and New Meadows (now Topsfield.)

Jacob Perkins Jr. was born in Ipswich in 1643, the son of Quartermaster John Perkins, grandson of John Perkins Sr., an early settler of Ipswich. He married his East Street neighbor, Sarah Wainwright, in 1667, who died February 3, 1688. He married a year later, Sarah Kinsman, daughter of Robert and Mary Kinsman, born March 19, 1659. He was known as “Corporal Jacob Perkins.” His father gave him the use of a farm of one hundred acres in Chebacco Parish (reserving to himself the right to dispose of it at his death), this being half of a farm which his father bought of William Whitred, carpenter, Aug. 8, 1661. The farm was on Apple Street near the falls of the Chebacco River in Chebacco Parish, which is now the town of Essex. Nearby was Jacob’s older brother Abraham, who received rights to the other 100 acres of his father’s farm. This branch of the family is associated with Chebacco Parish, now the town of Essex.

Sources and further reading:

• Hammatt Papers: Early inhabitants of Ipswich, Mass. 1633-1700 by Abraham Hammatt
• Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by Thomas Franklin Waters Volume I
• The Perkins Family, American Family History
• Mary Estey Perkins, American Family History
• Vital Records of Ipswich to 1850
• The family of John Perkins of Ipswich, Massachusetts by George Augustus Perkins
• 17th & 18th Century domestic architecture of the Massachusetts North Shore: Topsfield

Perkins Gravestones at the Old North Burying Ground

• Perkins, Abraham c-235 April 28, 1722
• Perkins, Abraham d-139 February 14, 1718
• Perkins, Abraham e-42 November 2, 1849
• Perkins, Capt Beamsley d-60 July 23, 1720
• Perkins, Capt Matthew a-16 April 19, 1738

Homes of the Perkins Family