A life, recovered
James Whitehead Perry Sr.
Two faces along the Brazos
Reconstructed likeness · modern artistic interpretation. Appearance is interpretive; the voice and dialogue are dramatizations, not historical recordings.
Open still portrait ↗The Perry family · five generations
The family in motion.
Daniel Perry III, James Whitehead Perry, J. Daniel “Dan” Perry, James Albert “Jim” Perry and Raymond John D. Perry.
01
A Burleson County household
James Whitehead Perry was a son of Daniel Perry III and Eliza Whitehead Perry. He married Sarah Ann Courtney in Burleson County in 1857.
Clayton’s published family account places James and Sarah’s household within the Brazos country, before later Perry generations continued west. Their son James Daniel “J.D.” Perry carried that family line into the next generation.
Sources: The Library at the End of the Highway · UNSUPERVISED* family register · Recovered family photograph register
Clayton’s fourth-great-grandparents James Whitehead Perry and Sarah Ann Courtney Perry. The date is estimated from their known lives, clothing and photographic format.
View the source record →02
The paired portraits
The family archive preserves portraits attributed to James and Sarah. Their approximate 1870s–1880s date follows the family copy, clothing and photographic format; it is an estimate rather than a surviving date written on the print.
Shown together, the portraits give both people a place in the story. James’s life connects the earlier Daniel Perry generation with the family that eventually appears on the Stonewall County ranch.
Sources: The Library at the End of the Highway · UNSUPERVISED* family register · Recovered family photograph register
03
Following the family west
The road through this history is a sequence of generations. James and Sarah belong to the Brazos chapter; their descendants’ lives reach toward Aspermont and the Perry Ranch.
In Clayton’s essay, libraries, county records and the surviving photographs allow that route to be followed through individual people instead of reduced to an arrow on a map.
Sources: The Library at the End of the Highway · UNSUPERVISED* family register · Recovered family photograph register
04
The inheritance, and two different James Perrys
James Whitehead Perry, Daniel’s son, is distinct from the older James Perry named in the 1832 Davidson Creek grant. Daniel’s September 12, 1866 will assigned his son 1,000 acres on Birch Creek, including his existing residence, and a residual Fort Bend inherited interest after Jane’s portion.
A sworn 1907 W. P. Hamblen affidavit cites James Whitehead Perry’s June 20, 1874 conveyance to Lipman Dinkins, Fort Bend Deed Book J:646. The original deed image remains a specific retrieval target. Hubert’s 207-acre deed abstract and the inventory’s 200 acres must be reconciled against the original instruments; they are not silently treated as identical.
PERRY FAMILY · HISTORICAL LAND RESEARCH
The Perrys on the Old Texas Maps
Daniel Perry III, the older James Perry, James Whitehead Perry and the Whitehead–Morton–Fitzgerald–Fenn network: recorded transfers, family connections and neighboring landholders, kept distinct.
Look a little closer
The photographs
hold more of the story.
Open any image to see the complete photograph. Captions name the people and places in each photograph.
The opening image and the photograph in the story are the available visual record for this profile.
Return to James Whitehead and Sarah Ann Courtney Perry ↑Continue through the archive
One life leads to another.
Behind this biography
Sources & further reading
These sources support the biography and its continuing research.
- The Library at the End of the Highway ↗
Clayton’s published family account of the Perry migration and James and Sarah’s portrait.
- UNSUPERVISED* family register ↗
Existing family record supplied and maintained by Clayton Hollingsworth; conclusions retain the stated evidence limits.
- Recovered family photograph register ↗
Photograph identifications and dates retain their stated family-memory or documentary status.
- Perry historical land atlas and source notes ↗
Hubert, printed pp.105–120, 143–146; original GLO SC 13:29; Fort Bend probate and deeds. Five annotated maps with unchanged source images and original key.
More from UNSUPERVISED*