Allen line: Robert Perrigo, revisited 1624-1683

 One of the reasons I write this blog is so others who are more knowledgeable, or who find new information, can find me and help make corrections and additions to what I've already written.  So I was thrilled when I opened my mail this morning and read an email from a man who questioned some of what I'd written in 2015, when I also wrote about Robert Perrigo.  That led me to retrace my research, and I found that I agree with some of what he told me, and am intrigued enough by what else I found to write this post.

The main fact that I had wrong in my earlier post was the place of Robert and Sarah Smart's marriage.  It was not New Barbadoes, New Jersey, but was in fact St. Michaels Parish in Barbados, West Indies.  This opens up a whole new set of questions.  Why was Robert there?  He was born in Hastings, Sussex, England in 1624.  I haven't located any records prior to his marriage, either in Barbados, in Hastings, or in Connecticut, where he and Sarah went to live.  He did purchase land in Saybrook, Connecticut in 1659. .  Did Robert go directly to Barbados, or was he already in Connecticut, or was he perhaps a merchant, or a seaman, or even an indentured servant, who was in Barbados for just a short time?  The possibilities are endless and I'm eager to find more about the early part of Robert's life.  Since Robert was 33 when he married Sarah, there is also the possibility that he had been married before.  Is that how he arrived in Barbados, through connections with that as yet unknown family?

To fill in a little of Robert's background, his parents were John and Amy Gregory Perigo of Hastings, Sussex, England. They had at least 5 living children, as well as a stillborn child, between 1612 and 1624.  Robert was apparently their youngest child. John's father, Robert, was hanged in Hastings in 1617, for burglary. It says something about the older Robert that John would name our Robert after his father, who died in disgrace.  We of course at this time can't know whether or not the older Robert was guilty, or what the extenuating circumstances might have been.  

We do know that Robert was from Picardy, France, and we know that his father, John, died in England in 1584.  I previously mentioned the possibility that the Perrigo family were Huguenots, and this information would tend to support that possibility.  The family may have come to Hastings around the time of the St Bartholomew Day's Massacre in 1572, or possibly later.  It would be interesting to figure out exactly how the family managed to make it to safety.  At any rate, life for many of the Huguenot refugees in England was hard, and if Robert was guilty, he may have been trying to keep himself and his family fed.  (These Johns and Roberts are confusing: John the earliest known was born about 1491, then Robert who was hanged was born before 1550, then John the father of our Robert was born 1587, and then our Robert in 1624.  Incidentally, John the father of our Robert was a gunsmith.  It would be interesting to learn how he came to be involved in that trade!)  

In this background, there is little I can identify to help us understand how our Robert came to be in Barbados, nor how he ended up in Connecticut.  I hope to find out more now that I have these clues, but it is possible that someone already has this information, and if so, I will update this post. I am also off to do more research on Sarah Smart, Robert's first wife, as it seems I did not identify the correct Sarah in my original post.  The marriage record doesn't even state her first name, so it may have been something else entirely.  Fun times!  

The line of descent is:

Robert Perrigo- unk Smart

Sarah Perrigo-John Royse

Moses Royse-Hannah

John Royse-Hannah Bellamy

Elizabeth Royse-William McCoy

James McCoy-Nancy Lane

Vincent McCoy-Eleanor Jackson

Nancy McCoy-George R Allen

Edward Allen-Edith Knott

Richard Allen-Gladys Holbrook 

Their descendants