Henry Clay Ragland had this to say about the Perry Family (Swain, p. 71-72):
"About the same time that William Hinchman settled at the mouth of Rich Creek, four brothers named Perry came into the county from Monroe. Of these, Jack settled about a mile above Huff's Creek. He was the father of seven sons and two daughters. His sons were Dr. James, who married his cousin, Margaret, a daughter of Joe Perry; Oliver, who married a Miss Haner; Henry, who married a daughter of Jack Chambers; Alexander, who went to Texas, and joined the forces of General Houston, and was never heard of afterwards; Ephraim, John and Sills, who moved West. Jane married Peter, a son of Conrad Riffe(1) who was one of the oldest settlers on Upper Tug. Mrs. Riffe was the mother of John Gordon and Patterson Riffe and Mrs. F. M. White and Mrs. Eli Gore. The other daughter of Jack Chambers(2) was Mary, who married Richard Chambers.Joe Perry, the next brother, settled on Buffalo. He had five sons and four daughters. Of his sons, Frank married a Miss Workman; Eli married a Miss Johnson; and James married a Miss Hatfield. Of his daughters, Margaret married Dr. James Perry, who was at one time sheriff of the county, and Polly married Rhodes D. Ballard, one of the most prominent and highly esteemed citizens of the county. Mr. Ballard was for years a Justice of the Peace, and for one term a member of the West Virginia Legislature, and was for a long time a member of the County Court. He died in 1888, in his eighty-eighth year. Jane married Abner Vance and Flora married Amos Workman.
Henry Perry, the next brother, settled on the Guyandotte River near the mouth of what is now known as Henry's Branch. He moved West and nothing is known of his family. James Perry, the fourth brother, settled at what is still known as the Perry place. He was the colonel of the Logan County militia for a long while, and was among the most prominent men of the county. His sons were Dow, who married a Miss Elkins; Granville, who married a daughter of Carter T. Clark; Preston, who married a daughter of Pyrrhus McGinnis; John A., who married a daughter of John Farley; Oliver, who married a daughter of W. W. McDonald; James, who went West; and Andrew, who enlisted in 1846, in the company of Captain Elisha MeComas, and went to Mexico, and died while still in the service near Vera Cruz. James Perry had two daughters, Mary, who married Major William Stratton; and Elba, who died unmarried.
Jack Perry married a Miss Dixon of Monroe County; Joe Perry married a Miss Sharkey of Greenbrier County; and James Perry married a Miss Roach of Monroe County. It is not known who Henry Perry married. They were the sons of John Perry, a native of the north of Ireland, and who has already been mentioned as the father of Mrs. Hinchman. John Perry had two other daughters who moved to this county: Bettie, who married Isaac Stollings of the mouth of Crawley; and Flora, who married Samuel Canterbury, who afterwards moved to Boone County. John Perry was said to be quite a learned man, and was the author of an arithmetic, which was for a long time a textbook in the schools of Virginia and North Carolina."
(1)Peter was the son of Gabriel RIFFE. Gabriel grew up in Montgomery County and lived on Clear Fork of Wolf Creek, a part of Tazewell County until 1809, then Cabell County until 1824 when Logan County was formed from Cabell. In 1822 Gabriel moved his family to The Roughs of Tug in Logan County, a tract now located in Mingo County near the McDowell County border at Mohawk. Gabriel died in 1824 or 1825, but it was not until 1850 that the last of Gabriel's land on Tug Fork was sold to Warren Alderson for $300 (Riffe, p. 68-69; 125-126).
(2)Jack Perry is probably meant.
Ragland makes no mention of Arnold Perry, at age 66 about the same age as the Perry brothers from Monroe County. Several other Perry families are not linked by Ragland into the Perry genealogy: George, Andrew, Jesse, Josiah, and Nathaniel seem linked to Arnold Perry by census proximity; John and William similarly are near Joseph Perry, and may be his descendants.
Back to Logan County, VA 1850 Census home page.