Tim Perry

PERRY, TRYON, CLARK, DINSMORE, HALPENNY, SMITH, DUESENBERRY, WOOD, HATFIELD

Posted By: Sharyl Ferrall - IAGenWeb volunteer
Date: 3/6/2011 at 03:26:49

The following is a short sketch of the career of Tim Perry, the genial and well-known auctioneer of Little Falls, Belle Prairie township, Morrison county, Minnesota. In addition to his duties as an auctioneer, in which capacity he is in very great demand, he farms on a large scale and has more than a local reputation as an expert breeder of Poland China hogs. To whatever undertaking claims his intereset, Mr. Perry gives the best of his ability and the success with which he is meeting is but commensurate with the effort which he puts forth.

Tim Perry is a native of this state, born on March 19, 1862, in Houston county, a son of Silas C. and Mary E. (Tryon) Perry, being the eldest of their family of seven children. Mr. Perry's father was a native of Connecticut, born in Windsor county, that state, on June 22, 1827, son of Timothy and Mollie (Clark) Perry, both natives of Connecticut. Timothy was a veteran of the War of 1812. Mr. Perry's mother was born in the state of New York on February 12, 1845, and together with her husband came to this state in 1850, reaching their destination in Houston county on May 4, of that year. Silas C. Perry was an expert ax-maker by trade, and after coming to this section he worked as a blacksmith for a few years and then bought a half-section of land from the government, for which he paid the sum of one dollar and a quarter per acre.

In 1868 he sold that tract and moved to Iowa, where he purchased two hundred and forty acres in Allamakee county, and to the cultivation of that tract he gave some of the best efforts of his life. In 1892 he retired from active labor and took up his residence at Storm Lake, Iowa, where his death occurred on March 7, 1914, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. Mr. Perry's mother is still living at the same place. She is a faithful member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and in spite of her years takes an active interest in the work of her church society.

As has been stated, Mr. Perry is the eldest of his family. The others are Henrietta, born in Houston county, this state, but now living with the mother at Storm Lake, Iowa; Ella, wife of Dr. O. Dinsmore, located at Fort Myers, Florida; Edith, wife of H. Halpenny, and now deceased; Lucile, Mrs. E. Smith, living at Mason City, Iowa, and a boy and girl, who died in early infancy.

Tim Perry was reared on his father's farm and attended the district schools of Postville, Iowa. The town at that time was nothing more than a small village and the school was conducted in the little log cabin so familiar to pioneers. However crude the structure, young Tim was able to lay a good educational foundation on which he has reared a worthy structure as the years have gone by.

In 1882 he went to Fayette, Iowa, and in the university there he took a good business course. A year later found him in South Dakota, where he homesteaded land but sold out within a short time and returned to Iowa, where for the next three or four years he was engaged in farming.

He next went to Tacoma, Washington, where he clerked in a grocery for a few years, and in 1891 came to Minnesota and engaged in the grocery business for himself in the city of Minneapolis. He retained that business but fourteen months, when he disposed of it and returned to his boyhood home near Postville, Iowa, and again engaged in farming.

In 1898 he moved to Dallas county, Iowa, and farmed there until 1901, when he came to Morrison county, this state, and has since been actively identified with its agricultural interests. Upon coming here, he purchased two hundred and forty acres of land, all of which was under brush at the time with the exception of eighty acres, and on which he has made extensive improvements. He now owns two hundred and thirty acres of land, has a comfortable residence, good barns and is at the present writing erecting a barn, size thirty by forty feet, designed to accommodate hay and stock.

Tim Perry was married on November 24, 1892, to Florence Duesenberry, born on July 19, 1874, in Geneseo, Illinois, a daughter of Alfred and Ellen (Wood) Duesenberry. Her parents were natives of Virginia and Illinois, respectively, and are still residing at Moline, Illinois, where they are retired farmers. To Mr. and Mrs. Perry have been born two children. Magdalene, wife of W. H. Hatfield, of Los Angeles, California, and Scott C., residing at home with the parents.

Mr. Perry's political preference is with the Republican party and he holds religious membership in the Congregational church. His fraternal affiliation is with the Loyal Order of Moose, and when a young man he united with the Knights of Pythias. He has taken considerable interest in politics, and in 1911 was nominated for county clerk of Morrison county on the Republican ticket, but suffered defeat with his party.

Mr. Perry has been crying sales since 1890, at which time he attended the school for auctioneers located at Galesburg, Illinois, and he now cries on an average of fifty to sixty public sales a year. He possesses in a marked degree those characteristics which go to the making of a successful auctioneer, and in view of his success in this profession, as well as his reputation as a farmer and breeder of Poland China hogs, probably no man in the county has a wider acquaintance or is more generally liked.

~History of Morrison and Todd Counties, Minnesota; Illustrated Volume II; by Clara K. Fuller, 1915; pgs 428-430