Richard T. Perry

Richard T. Perry (about 1869 to 1922) was a North Billerica grocer who served the town as an auditor in the 1890s, sat on the Select Board from 1902 to 1907, and returned to the board in 1920, dying in office in March 1922. The town's record of deaths for 1922 gives his age at death as 52 years, 2 months and 16 days, which places his birth at the end of 1869. The town reports say little about his family. In the 1910s the Overseers of the Poor paid "R. T. Perry" for groceries supplied to families on relief, and in 1913 the Billerica magazine noted a meeting of the Rowell Girls "at the home of Mrs. Richard T. Perry, Wilson Street, North Billerica."

He was first elected auditor in 1895, and in 1899 he led the field with 346 votes, serving with Erastus B. Colby and George P. Greenwood in checking the accounts of the treasurer and the town's trust funds. In March 1900 he ran for selectman and finished with 231 votes, one behind Edward B. Haskell, who took the third seat with 232. Ten citizens swore to a petition that the tellers had not counted his votes correctly, but the registrars recounted the ballots on March 31, 1900, and found the votes for Perry "correctly counted as recorded."

He won a seat two years later and served from 1902 to 1907, first with Charles H. Kohlrausch Jr., Josiah Wright and John A. Richardson, and in his last year with John J. Mahoney and Francis A. D. Singhi. Like the other selectmen he also served as a Fence Viewer. After leaving the board he stayed active in town meeting and sat on the moderator's Finance Committee in 1910. During the coal shortage of the First World War he was named, with William H. Sexton, to the Billerica Fuel Committee chaired by Edgar P. Sellew, which in the winter of 1917 to 1918, "the coldest on record," located small surplus stocks of coal when the village of North Billerica ran short.

Perry was elected a selectman again in 1920, with Thomas F. Sheridan and Thomas Talbot Clark. That autumn the board walked the town lines with the selectmen of Burlington, Wilmington and the other neighboring towns, and its report for 1920 described the start of district nursing, a memorial drinking fountain at Brown's Corner paid for by the bequest of Caroline Haynes Jenkins, and the captured German cannon awarded to Billerica for its Victory Loan subscriptions. In 1921, with Sheridan as chairman, Maurice A. Buck as the third member and Perry as secretary, the board approved long-open streets in the north part of town as a Board of Survey, put up new street signs and brighter street lights, paid for extra police in the Pinehurst camping district on summer weekends, and persuaded the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway to run half-hourly cars to the Centre and North Billerica. He signed the warrant for the 1922 annual meeting on January 9, 1922, and died on March 14, 1922, at the age of 52.

References

1. Billerica Town Report 1899, town election (Richard T. Perry elected auditor with 346 votes)
2. Billerica Town Report 1901, town election of March 26, 1900 (votes for selectmen: Haskell 232, Perry 231)
3. Billerica Town Report 1901, petition and recount of the votes for Richard T. Perry for selectman, March 1900
4. Billerica Town Report 1907, town officers (Richard T. Perry, selectman and fence viewer)
5. Billerica Town Report 1914, Overseers of the Poor bills (R. T. Perry, groceries)
6. Billerica Town Report 1918, Billerica Fuel Committee report (Richard T. Perry appointed a member)
7. Billerica Town Report 1920, selectmen's report signed by Richard T. Perry
8. Billerica Town Report 1921, selectmen's report signed by Richard T. Perry
9. Billerica Town Report 1922, deaths recorded in 1922 (Richard T. Perry, March 14, aged 52 years 2 months 16 days)
10. Billerica magazine, 1913 (meeting at the home of Mrs. Richard T. Perry, Wilson Street, North Billerica)