Civil War Veterans Buried In Washington State - Warren Perrigo

Warren W. Perrigo

Representing: Union


G.A.R Post

  • John F Miller Post #31 Seattle, King Co. WA

Unit History

  • 6th Maine Infantry E

See full unit history

Warren Perrigo
Full Unit History

6th MAINE VOLUNTEER INFANTRY
Organized: Spring/Summer 1861
Mustered In: 7/12 - 15/61 Portland, ME
Mustered Out: 8/15/64 Portland, ME

Regimental History

REGIMENTAL HISTORY:

  This three year eastern theater Maine regiment was composed principally of the hardy lumbermen of the Penobscot Valley and the eastern portion of the state. Before its organization it was made up of two battalions of five companies each, rendezvousing respectively at the state arsenal in Bangor and Fort Sullivan in Eastport. Under a general order issued  on 6/28/61 both battalions were moved to Portland and merged into a regiment which was mustered into Federal service between July 12th and the 15th and departed the state for Washington City on the 17th.

  Arriving in Washington on the 19th of July the 6th was stationed at Chain Bridge on the Potomac River where it remained until early September. Then, through the fall and winter of 1861 - '62 it occupied Ft. Griffin (in the defenses of Washington.)

  In March, 1862 the unit joined the advance of Union forces on Manassas, VA. A little later it moved toward Yorktown, VA. For the remainder of its three year tenure the 6th saw arduous and active service engaging in ten general engagements uncountable skirmishes.

  Actions during 1862 included the siege of Yorktown VA), actions at Lee's Mills VA, Williamsburg (VA), Garnett's farm (VA), White Oak bridge (VA), Antietam (MD) and Fredericksburg (VA).

  In March, 1863 the 6th was honorably engaged at Chancellorsville, VA where it lost 128 officers and men killed or wounded. From there it moved onto Rappahannock Station 11/7/1863 where it lost an additional 16 officers and 123 men.

  Moving into 1864 the 6th was active in The Wilderness and at Spotsylvania Court House and more men were lost. By June 12, 1864 the regiment numbered only seventy men with more to fall.

  Original members of the regiment were mustered out on 8/15/64. Veterans and recruits were then transferred to the 7th ME which was afterwards organized as the 1st Regiment Veteran Volunteers.

Regimental losses: 12 officers killed or mortally wounded; 2 officers died of disease, accidents, etc.; 141 enlisted men killed or mortally wounded; 100 enlisted men died of disease, accidents, etc.

Soldier History

SOLDIER:
Residence: Milo, ME   Age: 24.9 yrs.
Enlisted/Enrolled: 7/15/61 Portland, ME   Rank: Pvt.
Mustered In: 7/15/61 Portland, ME
Mustered Out: 8/10/62
Highest Rank: Pvt.

Family History

PERSONAL/FAMILY HISTORY:

  Warren W. Perrigo was born April 10, 1836. There is a hint of controversy surrounding whether his birthplace was Salisbury, West Moreland County in the province of New Brunswick, (Canada) or Sailsbury, in State of Maine (U.S.A). However, since Warren himself said he was born in New Brunswick to American parents and no community of Sailsbury, ME can be found we, herein, will accept the New Brunswick birthplace.

  Warren's father was Robert Perrigo (b. 1811 Waldo, ME). His mother was Ann (nee Crandall b. 1817 ME) Perrigo. There is no documental evidence regarding the family patriarch's occupational line.


  According to the Perrigo family, Warren was the eldest of ten children. His younger siblings were as follows: Charles (b. 1838 NB), Oliver (b. 1842 NB), Robert (b. 1843 NB), Mercy (b. 1844 NB), William P. (b. 1846 NB), Adeline (b. 1848 NB), George (b. 1850 NB), Joseph (b. 1855 NB) and James (b. 1859 NB).

  The first American connection for Warren comes from the 1860 census which found him in the Milo, Piscataquis, ME home of his uncle Charles H. Perrigo. When and why he had moved there is not documented.

  On 7/15/61, with civil war engulfing America Warren travelled from Milo to Portland (county), Maine where he enlisted in Captain Snowman's company of the 6th Maine Infantry. This organization would subsequently become company "E" of the 6th. At enlistment his vital statistics were noted as: Age 25 (close!); Height 5'7"; Complexion light; Eyes hazel; Hair black; Occupation lumberman. While in the army private Perrigo's surname would, at times, appear as Perigo.

  Considering the private's military service, muster rolls from the closing months of 1861 show him present for duty serving as a cook in the regimental hospital. The early months of 1862 also indicate being present, but by this time assigned as an orderly in the hospital. Nearing mid-year Private Perrigo would find himself not serving in the hospital, but being served therein.

  According to available records, following the 1862 Virginia battle of Fair Oaks/Seven Pines (May 31 - June 1) during Union Gen. George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, while in the swampy lands surrounding the Chickahominy River, Warren was taken severely ill. By June 6th he was absent sick and shortly thereafter, on the 21st was transferred from (Liberty Hill) temporary hospital to a general army hospital located at White House Landing on the James River. There, on the 27th, he was diagnosed with dysentery and placed aboard the U.S.A. hospital steamer State of Maine for transportation to a hospital in the north. On the 29th he was admitted to U.S.A. General Hospital 6th & Masters Streets located in West Philadelphia, PA. There his diagnosis was enlarged from dysentery to chronic diarrhea/dysentery and rheumatism.

  On July 8th, his conditions not improving, Private Perrigo was granted a twenty day medical furlough to return home and recuperate. He then departed Pennsylvania for home which was said to be in Haulton - although no such location can be found - in Aroostook County, ME. As Warren reported in later years, at the end of the furlough he returned to the hospital in Philadelphia, but was several days late because of being too sick to travel. It was then a Dr. Goddard informed him that because of the seriousness of his rheumatism which affected his neck, shoulders, arms and hands, he would never be able to return to duty with his regiment. With this, the doctor told Private Perrigo to return home and he (the doctor) would send him his medical discharge papers.  Such supposedly ended Warren's contact with the military on a somewhat positive note. Instead, it was the beginning of affairs beginning to go sideways as on 8/10/62 he was listed as having deserted from the army.

  Warren next document ally appears on 6/25/64 when he married Laura M. McDuff of LaGrange, Aroostook County, Maine. Documentarily it is unclear where the couple subsequently settled, but because Warren later indicated that after leaving the military he had resided in Milo, Maine and Cameron, Pennsylvania prior to moving west for his health, likely it was in Pennsylvania.

  The Perrigo's move west occurred in 1866 when they departed the east coast for Washington Territory. Why this location three thousand miles from his previous homes is not known. Perhaps it was because two of his brothers, George and William who were later identified as residents of Washington had travelled there ahead of him and encouraged the relocation.

  Warren and Laura reportedly arrived in Seattle, King County, Washington Territory on 5/17/66 and settled into a residence located at 709 2nd St. His health however, did not immediately improve and, according to one source; he almost died before experiencing an upturn in 1870. From that time forward his health was reported as being moderate to fair.

  1870. A new decade. A new census.  The tally for that year placed Warren and Laura not in Seattle, but in or near the community of Port Orchard west of Seattle across Puget Sound in Kitsap County. With his occupation listed as "lumberman" Warren and Laura apparently moved there because of the timber industry.  Also noted in their home was son George Perrigo who had been born in February, 1868. Interestingly George is never again mentioned, so likely he did not survive long in childhood.  Another resident in the household was one Andrew Williams a lumberman from Sweden.

  The Perrigo family stay in Kitsap County did not last long as by April 14, 1871 they were settling into an 80 acre homestead near the shores of Lake Washington in or near Seattle. The family remained on the land from that date until October, 1879. During that period they improved the land in the following way: A 24' x 20' log hewn home was constructed onto which was later attached a 10' x 20' addition. Also constructed was 40' x 44'barn and a 10' x 20' root house. Eighteen acres were cultivated and thirty fruit trees as well as "small fruits" were planted.

  In October1879 now-farmer Warren Perrigo apparently sold the homestead and moved easterly across Lake Washington to the Juanita area north of present-day Kirkland in King County. This was where the census of 1880 found the couple.  As brother George lived next door, perhaps, anew, a brother had preceded him to the area and enticed Warren to join him.

  1884. By the end of June of this year Warren was beginning the paperwork to obtain a U.S. Government disability pension based on ailments which he traced back to his days of Civil War soldiering. It was when this paper chase began that Warren was blindsided by word that since August 10, 1962 he was considered to be a military deserter. He was understandably shocked by this revelation which had never come to light even during his contacts with the government regarding his homestead.  Attempting to set the record straight he collected affidavits from those who knew him in Maine when he came home from the hospital and others who met him in Seattle.  All testified that Warren had been seriously ill not only when he returned to Maine, but also, when he moved to Seattle in '66. A Seattleite further testified that Warren was a respected citizen who had even served one term as a King County Commissioner.  The government, however, said such evidence could not be accepted as proof Warren's inability to complete his term of military service because of illness. Pension application denied.

  As Warren's pension paper chase continued tragedy struck the household when, on 9/25/87, Laura Perrigo died in the family home then located near the borough of Redmond slightly southeast of Juanita in King County. Cause of death is not known. What is known is that she was buried in Lake View Cemetery located on the north end of Seattle's Capitol Hill.

  Warren, himself, sustained serious bodily injury around the middle of 1891 when a runaway team of horses hitched to a wagon ran over and crushed his right arm.  The nature of the arm fracture was such that the appendage had to be amputated two inches below the shoulder. 

  1892. In January of that year, apparently because of changes in U.S. pension laws, the charge of desertion was removed from the records of former Private Perrigo and a discharge paper was issued honorably releasing him from the U.S. Army as of 8/10/62, the date he left the Philadelphia hospital for the final time. Shortly thereafter, on February 2nd he was granted a $12 monthly stipend based on loss of his right arm, catarrh of the throat, rheumatism, disease of the bladder, piles and constipation.

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  A new chapter in Warren's book of life opened on 4/13/94 when, in Seattle, he remarried to Scottish born, and much younger (2/22/66), Caroline Trail Pennycook. The first of the couples' five children, a daughter was born in Seattle one year and one month later. In obvious homage to Warren's first wife, she was christened Laura M. Perrigo.

  Where Warren and Caroline resided in Seattle immediately following their wedding is not clear, but an address document ally connected with the period is 910 5th Street. Four years later, when son Warren H. was born, the Perrigo residence was 1808 Madison. This was likely also the family address during the census of 1900, but interestingly enough, in 1904 when second daughter Katherine W. was born the birth took place east of Seattle in the King County and Cascade Mountains foothills community of Snoqualmie, WA. Had the Perrigo’s moved there? Was the birth in the home of a relative or friend? We may never know.

  What is documented is known is that by the census of 1910 the Perrigo’s had quitted King County and moved northward into Snohomish County where their residence was in the small community of Arlington. Likely the move was prompted by Warren following the timber industry because, although no occupation had been listed for him in the 1900 census, in 1910 he was noted as a maker of shingle bolts. That same year, on February 17 in Arlington, the Perrigo's final child, daughter Caroline A., was born.

  Dropping back a bit, in 1907 Warren's government pension had been raised from $12 to $15. In April, 1911 it was upped again, this time to $20. Finally, in 1912 it reached its maximum height by moving to $24. It was at this level when, on 12/28/14 Warren, then a resident of Pilchuck, a small community near Arlington, died. Cause for the 78.8 year old "rancher's" passing was cited as a mitral insufficiency of several years duration.  Burial, surprisingly, was not in nearby Arlington's Harwood Cemetery, but beside first wife Laura in Seattle's Lake View Cemetery.

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  Upon her husband's passing Caroline found herself a widow responsible for supporting and caring for three children - Katherine, Theodore and Caroline - under the age of sixteen years. Needless to say, in such a position she almost immediately began collecting affidavits from friends and relatives who could attest to her long marriage to Warren. Still, the paperwork process was not an easy one. For one thing, she found it impossible to attest to the Pension Department's request for her to prove her husband's death had been the final result of his Civil War sufferings. For another, not being Warren's first wife after his severance from the military, she was eligible for whatever pension funds had accrued between the time of his last pension payment and his demise, but no others.  While she was the mother of Warren's three minor children, and was appointed as guardian to oversee their individual $12 per month minor stipends, she could claim no pension of her own. Because of this and later curtailments on the child pensions, finances were tight for the widow Perrigo and her brood, at least until January, 1910 when, because of changes in pension rules, she was able to apply for and was granted a stipend of $24 or $25 per month. 

  After Warren's death Caroline remained in Pilchuck for almost a year before, on December 11, 1915 she and the children moved back to nearby Arlington. There the 1920 census found her household to be comprised of now 21 year old son, Warren, then employed as a salesman, plus Katherine, Theodore and Caroline E. The decade of the 1930s found the widow still in Arlington with others under her room being daughter Laura Thomas and her son Ethra, plus Theodore and Caroline. Also present was a grandson identified as Phillip W. McCleod.

  In February, 1936 the widow Perrigo's sought an increase in her pension to $40 based on her age and that payment left was granted a short time after. A few months later she moved from Arlington to the City of Everett also in Snohomish County. Her initial Everett address was 3602 Norton Avenue. It was apparently there that the census of 1940 found her with daughters Caroline and Laura along with Laura's son, Ethra and Phillip, who's surname, by time, was Thomas.

  Over the next several years widow Caroline changed addresses in Everett on several occasions. In July, 1943 she was residing at 1032A Woodlawn Avenue. By February, 1944 she was 4511 Colby Ave. unit M 26, and later that same year, in early July, her address was 105B Woodlawn Avenue. As best as can be determined, these address changes were under the tutelage of now divorced daughter Laura.

  Caroline T. Perrigo died January 30, 1946 at the age of 79.11 years. She was buried beside Warren in Seattle's Lake View Cemetery.

Cemetery

Buried at Lake View Cemetery Seattle


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