2nd Lt. Jonathan Perkins,1st Regiment N.H. Continental Line – Original Member
Jonathan Perkins, son of John Perkins of Epping, and grand-son of Abraham Perkins of Rye, was born in Epping, New Hampshire in 1749. He enlisted in the Army May 1, 1775, as a Sergeant in Captain Daniel Moor’s Company, of Colonel John Stark’s 1st New Hampshire Regiment then at Cambridge, near Boston. He was in the Battle of Bunker Hill and on September 2, 1775, he was drafted as a Sergeant in Captain Henry Dearborn’s company in the Detachment commanded by Benedict Arnold against Quebec. On January 1, 1776, he was taken prisoner at Quebec, and was thus detained till the 24th of September 1776, when he was landed at Elizabethtown Point, in New Jersey. He was not exchanged until June 1777.
On July 29, 1777, he received a Commission as Ensign in Captain Jason Wait’s Company of the 1st New Hampshire Regiment, Continental Line then commanded by Colonel Joseph Cilley. When the Continental Army was encamped at Valley Forge, he was listed as “Present” in December 1777, “Wounded/On Furlough” for January-March 1778, and again “Present” for April-June 1778. On March 24th, 1780, he received a Commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in Captain Moody Dustin’s company of the 1st New Hampshire, and continued in that service till the close of the war.
After the Revolution he became one of the original 30 members of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Hampshire on February 5, 1784.
He died August 11, 1824.
Sources: Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army (Baltimore, 1914), 436; Selected Wartime Service Records of 2nd Lieutenant Jonathan Perkins.
