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Auction: 394 - Coins, Commemorative Medals, Autographs and Documents - e-Auction
Lot: 713

AMERICAN INSTITUTE GOLD PRIZE MEDAL AWARDED TO COL. THOMAS H. PERKINS (1764-1854), NOTED MERCHANT, INDUSTRIALIST AND PHILANTHROPIST

American Institute of New York. Gold Prize Medal, 1843. 28mm, 17.09 gms. By Lovett. Hark.72. Liberty seated left, holding wreath before her, eagle atop shield beside her, spinning wheel before, ship in distance, rev. Engraved to: "Hon: Thos: H Perkins / For twelve superior / varieties of / Bonse Grapes / 1843".

Born the 15th of December 1764 in Boston, Massachusetts, Thomas Handasyd Perkins was the son of James and Elizabeth Perkins. Although Perkins's mother was initially intent on providing her son with a university education, he was a reluctant student and instead obtained employment with Messrs Shattuck, then the most prosperous firm of merchants trading out of Boston, where he remained until he was 20 years of age. In 1785 he joined his brother, James, in setting up a trading house in St. Domingo in the West Indies. But finding that the climate did not agree with his health, returned to Boston, his younger brother Samuel instead taking his place in the partnership. Whilst in St Domingo, Perkins also established himself in the slave trade at Cap-Haitien, Haiti.

In 1785, when China opened the port of Canton to foreign businesses, Perkins became one of the first Boston merchants to engage in the China trade, making his first trip to the Orient in 1789, sailing for Canton via Batavia with a cargo of ginseng, cheese, lard, wine and iron. On the return trip he brought tea and silk to Boston. He subsequently made several other successful voyages to the Pacific, North-West coast of America and China. With his elder brother, Perkins established the firm of J & TH Perkins. Their most important business was in trade between the northwest coast of the U.S. and China, where they eventually established a trading house, Perkins & Co, in Hong Kong. In 1815 Perkins and his brother also opened a Mediterranean office, to buy Turkish opium for re-sale in China.

Perkins was also a major industrial investor within Massachusetts. He owned the Granite Railway, the first commercial American railroad, which was built to carry granite from the Quincy quarries to Charlestown for construction of the Bunker Hill Monument and other city buildings in Boston. He also held significant holdings in the Elliot textile mills in Newton, the mills at Holyoke and Lowell, canals and railroads, as well as lead and iron mines, including the Monkton Iron Company in Vermont.

Politically active in the Federalist Party, Perkins was elected to the State Senate of Massachusetts in 1805, going on to serve eight terms in the Massachusetts Senate and three terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Perkins donated a considerable portion of the fortune he had accumulated to charitable, public and benevolent purposes, establishing the Massachusetts General Hospital and an asylum for the insane. Perkins also gave his house and grounds in Pearl Street, Boston, then valued at $50,000, for a blind asylum, the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind. He was also a supporter of the Boston Atheneum, in 1826, with his brother James, contributing $15,000 towards the construction of an extension to the Atheneum Gallery of Art; a major benefactor of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and also contributed to the establishment of the Boston Mercantile Library.

As a 12-year-old boy, Perkins had been in the crowd that witnessed the Declaration of Independence being read out in Boston. In later life he was one of the founders of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, and paid for a statue in honor of General Warren, paying $1000 to cover the cost of its erection, and was one of the principal contributors to the fund raised to pay for the erection of a statue commemorating George Washington

In 1796, Thomas Perkins was appointed Colonel-Commandant of the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Bodyguard, having previously served as a Major in the unit. In the same year he visited George Washington in Washington.

After retiring Perkins built a summer home with extensive gardens and a vineyard, on Swan Island in the Kennebeck river near Richmond, Maine, where he cultivated his Bonse grapes. He helped the island achieve independent municipal status by paying the legal fees for its charter and the Swan Island's principal town was named Perkins in gratitude. Perkins township is now a ghost town, having been abandoned in the 1940s. Colonel Perkins died January 11,1854 in Brookline, Massachusetts and is buried in the family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery. His archives are held by the Massachusetts Historical Society (comprising 2 document boxes, 59 volumes, 11 extra-tall volumes and 1 oversize box.)

NGC MS 62 PL.

Sold for
$2,400

Starting price
$2400