Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Loyalist, Ontario, Canada
About Peter Perry
- Peter Perry (November 14, 1792 – August 24, 1851) was a businessman and political figure in Upper Canada. He was born in Ernestown, Upper Canada (now Bath, Ontario) in 1792, the son of Robert Perry and Jemima Gary Washburn.
- His father was a United Empire Loyalist from Vermont who had served with the Queen's Rangers and Edward Jessup's Loyal Rangers during the American Revolution.
- The family settled in Township No.
- 2, later Ernestown.
- His uncle was Ebenezer Washburn, a member of the Legislative Assembly who presented Prince Edward County.
- In 1814, he married Mary Polly Ham. In 1823, Perry took part in the protest against the removal of Marshall Spring Bidwell's name from the ballot in a by-election.
- In 1824, with Bidwell, he was elected to the 9th Parliament of Upper Canada representing Lennox and Addington Counties; both remained in office until 1836.
- Perry supported the resolutions advanced by the reformers in the Assembly; these were usually rejected by the more conservative Legislative Council.
- He supported the abolition of the clergy reserves and the separation of church and state.
- In 1831, he introduced legislation to allow clergymen of any recognized denomination to perform marriage ceremonies; that bill was passed. After he was defeated in the election of 1836, he moved to Whitby, Ontario, where he established a general store and warehouses at the harbour on Windsor Bay.
- He also established a store at Port Perry on Lake Scugog; the town was named in honour of him.
- Although he was not participating in politics himself at the time, he campaigned on behalf of James Edward Small and William Hume Blake in Whitby.
- When Blake resigned in 1849, Perry was elected in a by-election as a member of the Clear Grits.
- Perry's election on Clear Grit principals in 1849 is viewed as the founding election victory in the Clear Grit movement.
- However, he became ill in early 1850.
- After a visit with Marshall Spring Bidwell in New York City in 1851, he died in Saratoga Springs, New York and buried at Union Cemetery, Oshawa, Ontario.
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