The Perry Family
William Kittredge Perry
Buckeye - Maricopa County
Inducted in 2019
This story begins in 1844 when William Henry Perry was born in Westford, MA. He was the oldest child of William Kittredge and Charlotte Jones Prescott Perry. William’s mother, brother, and sister all passed away from tuberculosis. When his father remarried around 1870, he moved the family to Fitchburg, Massachusetts, to start farming. William decided to return to Sacramento, California. Armed with the knowledge of mines he had gained as a child when his father took him to the gold fields . At the age of 26, he became business partners with George Helm, and they started their farming operation in Kern Valley, a town outside Bakersfield. While on a visit home to Fitchburg, he met Mary Agnes Clark, an immigrant from Dublin, Ireland. They would marry in the year 1873. William Henry returned to California while Mary Agnes stayed in Massachusetts, where she gave birth to their first child, Henry Jones, in 1874. One year later, William was reunited with his wife and first son in San Francisco. William and George sold their 160 acres for $2,000 in gold that same year. Two decades later, oil was discovered on that property along the Kern River, and oil wells continue to produce oil today.
Still, in partnership, William and George purchased sheep and took them to Arizona. They crossed Nevada and Utah and finally set up winter camp in Badger Springs, Arizona. William built a home and decided to run the sheep from Badger Springs to Flagstaff and back. Their second child, Elizabeth, was born in 1876 on one of those trips. During the following seven years, three more children joined the Perry family in Badger Springs: Minnie in 1878, Grace in 1881, and William Kittredge, born in 1883. William and George decided to sell their sheep herd and invest in cattle in 1883. William moved his family to an area east of Cordes, where he filed a homestead claim and formed the Perry Cordes Ranch. This is where his other four children were born: Mabel in 1885, Maud in 1887, Agnes in 1890, and Eben Prescott in 1892. William and Mary Agnes would have nine children in 19 years, and their children's education was a top priority. It was so important that William hired several tutors to come to the ranch and teach the children. It was not until the birth of their sixth child that they decided that a school district was needed in the area around, so William presented his petition to the Board of Supervisors asking for a school district. The Board approved the petition, and on September 17, 1888, Cordes, District 41, was established, and William was chosen as Trustee. He served as Trustee from 1888 to 1891, and his wife followed from 1892 to 1902.
In 1899, William built a house at 113 E. 6th Street in Tempe, so his children would have a place to live when they attended Tempe Normal, now Arizona State University. There were no dormitories at the time. All the girls graduated from Tempe Normal, while only one son, Eben Prescott, attended but did not finish.
William sold the Perry Cordes Ranch to his eldest son, Henry Jones, in 1904 and moved with his wife to a 200-acre parcel along the Salt River near 35th Avenue in Phoenix. They lived there until Mary Agnes died in 1915 at the age of 64. At that time, William sold the Tempe house and moved to the home of his son, William Kittredge, in Peoria, Arizona, where he lived until he died in 1929 at the age of 84.
Many of their children maintained ties to agriculture and the education field. Henry Jones took over the Perry Cordes Ranch; Charlotte Elizabeth and her husband Homer Redden traveled between the Perry Ranch and Phoenix Farm, ending up in the Kyrene district and becoming ranchers. Minnie Adeline graduated and was approved to become a teacher in Yavapai County in 1901. Grace and Mabel Perry attended Lamson Business College after Tempe Normal. Maud Perry was very involved at Tempe Normal, becoming the newspaper editor there and a teacher following graduation. She returned to school at Northern Arizona University, where she earned her atrium baccalaureate and master's degrees, and then returned to teaching. Following her sister, Agnes Perry became assistant editor at the Tempe Normal newspaper and graduated with a life diploma. Eben Prescott Perry only attended Tempe Normal for two years and dropped out to serve in the war.
William Kittredge worked with his brother Henry on the Perry Cordes Ranch and the Phoenix Farm and operated a cattle ranch in Yavapai County. In 1907, he purchased cattle, horses, and a wagon from his brother, Henry Jones-Perry, and one-half of the interest in all buildings and property owned by Henry Jones. In 1916, he married Nellie Teresa Whelan, a teacher for the Avondale School, and later became a principal for the Murphy Elementary School. In 1917, William Kittredge and Nellie moved to Peoria, where they had a dairy farm and later cotton and cattle holdings. They had two sons, Paul Edmund, born in 1918, and William Herbert, born in 1920. Nellie died in 1948 at the age of 65, and William Kittredge was killed in 1954 at the age of 71. Their sons, Paul Edmund, and William Herbert, continued farming for several years until they separated the partnership and sold the farm. Both brothers purchased land in Buckeye, Arizona, where they farmed until their deaths.
Farming, ranching, and education have been critical to the Perry family throughout their history, and the descendants of Paul Edmund and William Herbert continue the family legacy.
Affiliations
William Henry Perry
Cordes District 41 Trustee 1888 to 1891
Cordes District 41 Mary Agnes Trustee 1892 -1902
