Dr. John Gardner Perry, (USA)

Born – 22 January 1840, Suffolk at Boston, Mass. Died – 1 December, 1926, Boston, Mass. of coronary sclerosis His parents were Marshall Sears Perry (1805-1859) and Abby Stimson (1816-1857). He married - Martha Derby Rogers in 1864 [probably in Mass.] Her parents were John Rogers and Sarah Ellen Derby.

Perry was educated at Harvard Medical School, Boston 1863 and became a surgeon in New York in 1863, before enlisting in the army as an assistant surgeon. While in the army he badly broke his leg in a fall from his horse and was told by another surgeon that it needed to be amputated. He said no to the Surgeon and signed his own discharge papers to travel home. When he arrived home, there was no one to set his leg, so he set it himself with the help of his brother in law.

After he had partially recovered and completed his medical degree, he returned to active duty on crutches. On his arrival he was required to be inspected by the surgeon-general, so he hid his crutches under the stairs, and managed with great difficulty to walk across the room without them. Perry was commissioned an officer in Company S, Massachusetts 20th, Infantry Regiment, 14 April 1863 and mustered out, on or about 10 August 1864. A fellow surgeon in the 20th Massachusetts was named Hayward and may have been a relative of G S Hayward.

He returned to medicine after the Civil War and walked on his leg until his death in 1926. The Perry's lived in Boston at least until 1864 then moved to Manhattan. The 1870 census shows them in New York Ward 21, District 17, New York, New York. There is an entry for a Nellie Perry, age 4, born about 1866 residing with them.