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Judge J.S. Perry, Mayor, capitalist and a representative citizen of Rockdale, Milam county, is a native of Kentucky, of which State his people were early settlers, moving there from Virginia during the latter part of the last century. They lived in the central part of the State, in what is now Scott and Woodford counties, being in the heart of the Blue Grass Region. . . . James Samuel Perry, named for his grandfathers, James Perry and Samuel Morrow, was born in Scott county, Kentucky, September 5, 1835. He was in his seventh year when his parents moved to Missouri. His boyhood and youth were passed in Lafayette county, there they settled, and his preliminary education was received in the schools of that county. Coming to Texas with his parents, in 1858, he resided on the farm in Travis and Washington counties, engaged in farming and stock-raising, and attending school at Independence in the latter county until the opening of the late war.

He entered the Confederate army in 1861, enlisted in Company F of which he was elected Lieutenant, Tenth Texas Infantry, commanded by Colonel Roger Q. Mills, with which he was in active service during the greater part of the war. At the fall of Arkansas Post, in 1863, he was taken prisoner with his brigade; was subsequently exchanged, and was with Bragg, and then with Johnston and Hood in their operations about Chattanooga, and in all of the Georgia campaigns down to Atlanta, before which, in the second day's fight under Hood, he was wounded, losing the thumb and two fingers of the left hand. Disabled by this from further duty in the field, he was placed in the detective service, and until the close of the war was on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad.

After the surrender he returned to Texas, and, having read law, was admitted to the bar at Brenham, in 1866, and began practices at Milliean, which he pursued at that place and at Byran he was County Judge of Brazos county, under Throckmorton's administration, and in 1876 he was elected County Judge of Milam county.

In 1874 he moved form Cameron to Rockdale, where he continued in the practice of law, and three years later became interested in the banking business. The institution, with which he was connected, was the Rockdale Bank, the pioneer institution of the kind in Milam county. It was started in January 1874, by Isaac Jaloniek, representing Stowe & Wilmerding, of Galveston, and was run about a year, when it failed, and was then bought by Wayland & Wheatley; two years later these men sold it to Judge Perry, who kept it in active operation until January, 1892, when it went into voluntary liquidation.

In 1882 Judge Perry was elected to the State Senate for the senatorial district composed of the counties of Milam, Brazos and Robertson, and served in that capacity during the eighteenth and nineteenth sessions of the Legislature.

In the twenty years that Judge Perry has resided in Milam county he has accumulated considerable means, most of which are invested in lands in the county and in town lots and enterprises of one kind and another in Rockdale. Whatever tends to further the interest and welfare of the community in which he lives, receives his cordial approbation and prompt assistance. He is president of the Rockdale Cotton Oil Mills, and is one of the chief promoters of the Rockdale Improvement Company, owners and operators of the water works and electric-light plant of that place. He is the present Mayor of Rockdale, and is credited with making a dignified and efficient officer, thoroughly alive to the interests of the town, and prompt in the execution of its laws. Under his administration the town has prospered as never before, and it was mainly through his management that the city acquired its very efficient system of water works and electric lights.

He has always been a Democrat and comes of a long line of Democratic ancestors. His father was an associate, in early life, of Richard M. Johnson, one of Kentucky's great lights of Democracy, under whom he was trained to a strict observance of the principles and practices of the party. . . . From History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson Counties
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