To George Washington from Lieutenant David Perry, 6 September 1775
From Lieutenant David Perry
[Cambridge, c.6 September 1775
“Whereas God in his holy providence has frowned upon the Family of your petitioner, in that his Wife1 is rendered incapable of taking care thereof, by reason of having both her Arms broke by a fall from an horse; and he has a Number of small & helpless Children, And no One to provide for them,” he asks to be dismissed from the army.
ALS, DLC. This document has no dateline, but Perry is said to have resigned from the Continental army on 6 Sept. 1775 (Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army during the War of the Revolution, April, 1775, to December, 1783 [Washington, D.C., 1914], 437). Perry’s regiment was stationed at Cambridge.
David Perry (1741–1826) of Killingly was a second lieutenant in Major General Israel Putnam’s Connecticut regiment. He later served for a time as a first lieutenant in the Connecticut militia.
1. Perry married Anna Bliss in 1764.