6 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
settled in 1630. He was joined later by his god-daughter, 
Alice Perkins, who although a Puritan had married, in 
spite of family displeasure, her Roman Catholic cousin, 
Edmund Perkins of Ufton Court, and being left at his 
death with scant provision for her three children, came 
with them from England to her god-father for support. 
From her son, Edmund, the branch of the family to which 
Mrs. Agassiz belonged was descended. In his grandson, 
James Perkins, a highly respected merchant of Boston, the 
great-grandfather of Mrs. Agassiz, qualities appear that ac- 
quire a significance in her biography. Grave and courteous 
in manner and upright in principles he found his friends 
among such men as Samuel Adams, James Otis and Paul 
Revere. He is associated to his own advantage with Paul 
Revere in a flattering family tradition, according to which 
they came home one day after a hard gallop on horseback, 
Revere as mud-stained as he had reason to be after his fa- 
mous ride in a better cause, and Perkins the pink of neat- 
ness, for, the record adds, “dirt, moral or physical, could 
not stick to him.” His wife, Elizabeth, the daughter of 
Thomas Handasyd Peck of Boston, a dealer in furs, was 
fully his equal in strength of character and when at his 
death she was left with the care of a large family of chil- 
dren, she not only brought them up admirably, but as- 
sumed the management of her husband’s business and 
conducted it with such efficiency that her sex was not sus- 
pected by her commercial correspondents in Holland, who 
used to address her as Mr. Elizabeth Perkins. Many tales 
are also told of the good works that she did, not only in 
connection with various charitable associations of Boston, 
but independently, lodging, for instance, an insane woman 
