Rev. James Handasyd Perkins (1810-1849)

He was born in Boston and at­tend­ed Phil­lips Exe­ter Aca­de­my, New Hamp­shire, and Round Hill School, North­amp­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts. After a brief time in bu­si­ness in Bos­ton, he moved to Cin­cin­na­ti in 1832, where he stu­died law was admit­ted to the bar in 1834. He ev­en­tu­al­ly left the le­gal pro­fes­sion, and be­came ed­it­or of the Sa­tur­day Ev­en­ing Chro­ni­cle. In 1835, he bought the pa­per and merged it with the Cin­cin­na­ti Mir­ror. In 1839, he took up the Min­is­try-at-Large or­gan­ized by the First Con­gre­ga­tion­al So­ci­ety (Uni­tar­ian) of Cin­cin­na­ti, and lat­er be­came Pas­tor of the church. He was ac­tive in so­cial re­forms and as a lec­tur­er he wrote a num­ber of es­says de­scrib­ing life in what was then Am­eri­ca’s far west. He was Vice-Pre­si­dent and re­cord­ing Sec­re­ta­ry of the unit­ed Ohio and Cin­cin­na­ti His­to­ri­cal So­cie­ties. His lifelong struggles with his physical and mental health ended with suicide.