Daniel Perrin

Daniel Perrin,
'The Huguenot'

A plaque erected by Perrin descendants in 1903, commemorating their ancestors' voyage from Jersey to New Jersey

Daniel Perrin (1642–1719) was one of the first permanent European inhabitants of Staten Island, New York. He is remembered today as 'the Huguenot', although his true history is shrouded in mystery. Jerripedia editor Mike Bisson examines the evidence

Philip Carteret and his 'servants' land in New Jersey

Daniel Perrin is an important name in American history. He has become something of a folk hero, and is feted today as 'Daniel Perrin, the Huguenot', one of the first European settlers in Staten Island, New York, and the first person to marry in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. But was he, as is generally suggested, born in the island of Jersey? And was he a Huguenot?

Although much is known and has been written about his arrival in the USA and his marriage, subsequent life and his descendants, nothing is actually known about his ancestry, but that has not stopped his descendants and other historians speculating.

20th century book

The definitive work on Daniel Perrin is Daniel Perrin, 'The Huguenot', and his descendants in America of the surnames, Perrine, Perine, and Prine, 1665-1910, written by Howland Delano Perrine, a lawyer and descendant, and published as a limited edition in 1910. It has been much reprinted but an original copy survives in the Boston Public Library and has been digitised and is available online.

After an introductory section about Jersey and Normandy, the author turns to the subject of his book and very succinctly summarises the lack of information about Daniel Perrin's life before he arrived in the USA.

"Of the early history of Daniel Perrin, before coming to America, we now know nothing positive, further than that he was a son of Pierre Perrin, was of Norman French descent, a Protestant and a Huguenot.

"He was a young man when he set forth to establish a home in the New World, and unmarried, and it was in this promised land that the (sic) found not only a home but his life's helpmate.

"We first see him as one of the newcomers on board the ship Philip, in the year 1665. Historical accounts say that this ship set sail in April 1665 from a port of the Isle of Jersey, under the command of Governor Philip Carteret, and arrived at New York Harbor on 29 July 1665."

Where was he born?

There are two contrasting versions of Daniel Perrin's early life:

• He was the son of Pierre Perrin, born in Jersey in 1642, and joined Philip Carteret's voyage as a male servant
• He was born in Rouen, Normandy, and fled with his family to Holland to escape a new wave of persecution of protestant Huguenots in 1650

Whichever of these versions is true, neither is apparently supported by any documentary evidence.

It is suggested that his presence on Philip Carteret's ship is explained by long-standing connections of the de Carteret and Perrin families. That is supported by the baptism records of those members of the Perrin family who do appear in Jersey church registers. The first appearance of the family name is in the St Saviour register, recording the marriage of Hughes Perrin and Marie Lempriere in 1543. The Lemprieres were an extremely important Jersey family. Marie is shown in her marriage record as the daughter of Clement, Seigneur of Rosel and Bailiff of Jersey at the time. Ownership of Rosel Manor passed from the Lemprieres to the Perrins through this marriage.

Baptism records only start at about this time, so there is no record of either Hughes Perrin's or Marie Lempriere's births. A large and extremely well researched Perrin family tree shows, however, that the family had been present in the Channel Islands since the 13th century, first in Guernsey, moving to Jersey nine generations later.

They were one of Guernsey's foremost families, several of the men serving as Jurats, and it was Jurat Dominique Perrin (1450- ) who married for the first time to Catherine Lemprière, sister and heiress of John Lemprière ( -1534).

There is another early Perrin marriage in Jersey records, of Hiou (Hugh) to Dorothe (Dorothy) Poulet, daughter of George, in 1608. The Poulets (Paulets) were the ruling family in Jersey in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and George was Bailiff of from 1583 to 1614. Hiou and Dorothy were first cousins, George Paulet having married for the third time to Elizabeth Perrin, Dorothy's mother.

The first Perrins to appear in baptism records were Marthe and Jeanne, baptised in St Brelade and St Helier in 1608 and 1611. They were daughters of Abraham and Susaine. Cecile and Lucrece, daughters of Hyou (Hugh) Perrin, were baptised in St Helier in 1614 and 1626. What these two sets of baptisms had in common was a de Carteret godfather for Jeanne and Cecile, proving the link between the two families. There are two further 17th century baptisms of Perrin boys in the registers, but the family seems to have died out in Jersey in the middle of the century.

This means that there is no obvious link to Daniel, or his supposed father Pierre, neither of whom feature in our family tree. Had Daniel been born in Jersey in 1642, it is strange that there are no church records at this time. This is particularly so because Howland Perrine suggests in his book, albeit without enormous conviction, that Daniel was one of three brothers who all emigrated to the USA, and that Daniel encouraged his father to join him there.

Daniel Perrin and Maria Thorel's marriage licence - not a marriage certificate as frequently erroneously described - signed by Philip Carteret, with whom they sailed to America

USA records

There is no shortage of details of Daniel's life in America, although how much is based on factual records and how much on what his biographer Perrine frequently refers to as 'tradition' is uncertain.

Daniel arrived in New York Harbor from Jersey on 29 July 1665 aboard the ship Philip, under the command of Philip Carteret. He lived in Elizabethtown, part of the Elizabethtown Tract (now Elizabeth, New Jersey), for a while before moving across the Arthur Kill and settling on Staten Island.

In 1692 he was granted 80 acres (320,000 m2) of land by Governor Benjamin Fletcher in an area along the south shore of Staten Island then known as Smoking Point. During the American Revolutionary War this area was known as Blazing Star, and is now known as Rossville.

The Staten Island neighborhood of Huguenot is named after Huguenots who settled in the area during the late 17th century and early 18th centuries. However, the change of name from Bloomingview to Huguenot did not happen until the mid-19th century, and it seems that this followed historical research earlier in that century by the Rev Humphrey Mount Perrine, grandfather of Howland Perrine, who refers to him in the introduction to his book.

"Nearly a century ago my grandfather, Rev Humphrey Mount Perrine, becoming greatly interested in the subject of the history of his family, noted down, from time to time, the facts as he personally knew them, and added such other information as he was able to casually gather from others familiar with the subject.

"Fortunately a copy of his notes were preserved ... ... while it is to be regretted, however, that he did not go more fully into details, for there were many of the family then living who might, had Dr Perrine only sought them out, have given him much valuable information, details and other material, that is now lost."

French birth?

If Daniel Perrin was not born in Jersey, was he born in France?

There seems little doubt that his wife was born in Rouen, Normandy, and the association of the two of them in many historical writings has led some to believe that Daniel was also from Rouen. They feature in no fewer than 5,277 public trees in Ancestry alone, many of which, not unexpectedly are just copies of others. This is far from unusual when those, particularly Americans, who post their trees to Ancestry, are determined to trace their own lineage to famous figures of the past.

The place of birth given for Daniel varies enormously. Many trees state that it was Jersey, others show virtually every part of France, from Normandy to La Rochelle, to Lyon, to Burgundy. The majority of the trees are, quite frankly, full of rubbish. One of the worst examples is a tree which claims to have 73 sources for the page on Daniel and gives his birthplace as Isle of Jersey, La Rochelle, France! There is general agreement that his parents were Pierre Perrin (1615-1698) and Andrienne Jubril (1618-1698).

At this point the trees get more and more fanciful. Several show Pierre born in Jersey, the son of Comte Edmund du Perrin, of 'La Rozel', the son of Dominique Perrin and Catherine Lempriere. Dominique was allegedly born in France, married in Jersey and died in Guernsey, where at one point he was 'Burgess of the town of St Pol in Guernsey, France.

There seems little point in wading through any more of these trees in search of documented evidence of the Perrin family. If Daniel was born in France, the question of when and why he arrived in Jersey arises. Huguenot refugees fled from France to Jersey and elsewhere in two distinct phases. The first followed what became known as the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, when Catholics killed thousands of Huguenots in Paris. Similar massacres took place in other towns in the weeks following, including Rouen and Lyon, two of the suggested birth places for Daniel Perrin 70 years later. The second exodus followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1698. For some 120 years this Edict had ensured relative security for protestants.

Daniel cannot have left for Jersey in either wave if he was born in 1642 and left for the USA in 1665. The family name does not appear in any lists of Huguenots arriving in Jersey. Those who attempt to justify the label of 'Huguenot' which appears to have been ascribed to Daniel by descendants some time in the early 19th century, suggest that his family were already fearful for their future and left France in 1650.

That hardly justifies the description of Daniel as undoubtedly America's most famous Huguenot. He may have had Huguenot ancestry, but he was only eight years old in 1650.

If the family did, indeed, leave France then, where did they go? They might have headed for Jersey had they had relatives there, but we have already established that the long-standing Perrin family had died out by this time.

There remains the suggestion that the fled to the Netherlands, as did many Huguenots at various times. If so, his presence on Philip Carteret's voyage to New York in 1665, and that of his future wife, Maria Thorel, has not been explained

Family

Daniel Perrin married Maria Thorel, of Rouen, France, on 18 February 1666. It is family tradition that they already knew each other and may even have been engaged, but enlisted separately as 'servants' to ensure their safety. The need for this subterfuge has never been explained. It is tempting to believe that it was another invention by Perrin descendants some 200 years later to heighten the drama of their ancestors' 'flight to America to escape religious persecution'.

Daniel and Maria had five sons and one daughter: Peter (1667- ), Henry (1669- ), James (1670- ), Daniel (1672- ), William (1673- ), and Francyntje (1675- ) . He also had three daughters from a second marriage to a woman named Elizabeth. They were Sara, Elizabeth, and Mary. Perrin died on Staten Island after 6 September 1719.