Christopher Raymond Perry

Christopher Raymond Perry (December 4, 1761 – June 1, 1818) was an officer in the United States Navy. He was the father of Oliver Hazard Perry and Matthew Calbraith Perry.

He was born in Newport, Rhode Island, the son of the Honorable Freeman Perry and his wife Mercy Hazard. Christopher's father, Freeman, was a physician and surgeon. In 1780, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Washington County, Rhode Island, which position he held until 1791.

Christopher Perry enlisted in the militia during the American Revolution, then served on a privateer. He was captured twice, and met his wife when he was a prisoner in Ireland.

In 1799, during the Quasi War with France, Perry was commissioned a captain in the U.S. Navy. Perry commanded the frigate General Greene, on which his son Oliver Perry served as a midshipman. He took the General Greene on a cruise to the Caribbean. He, along with most of the other officers in the Navy at that time, was involuntarily retired from the Navy by the Peace Establishment Act of April 3, 1801.

He is buried in the Belmont-Perry plot in the Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island.

He was the great-grandson of Edward Perry from the county of Devon, England who settled in Sandwich, Massachusetts around 1650 and his wife Mary Freeman.

On his mother's side he was a seventh-generation descendant of Captain Richard Raymond (1602–1692) and his wife, Julia (or Judith). He was born probably in Essex County, England in 1602 and arrived in Salem, Massachusetts about 1629, possibly with a contingent led by the Rev. Francis Higginson. The first actual date given for Richard is on August 6, 1629 when he is on the list of the 30 founding members of the First Church (Congregational) of Salem. He was about 27 years old. He was later a founder of Norwich, Connecticut, and an "honored fore-father of Saybrook".

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