History of Oakland County Michigan a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, its principal interests / compiled from the official records of the county, the newspapers and data of personal interviews, under the editorial supervision of Thaddeus D. Seeley.

HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

149

Peninsula. In the fall of 1874 he was a candidate for county clerk
and with a total of ten thousand votes cast he was defeated by eleven
votes. That defeat he now counts as one of the fortunate events of his
career, as he subsequently reentered the law department of the university, from which he was graduated the following spring. He next
spent two summers at Sand Beach, assisting Mr. Gilbert, of the class
of I870, University of Michigan, in charge of the work of constructing
the United States harbor refuge at that place, spending the intervening
winter in careful study of the law in the office of Judge A. C. Baldwin
of Pontiac. In the fall of I876 he entered actively into the Tilden
campaign and stumped the county in the interests of Democracy. After
the election he became a partner of Judge Taft of Pontiac, with whom
he continued for two years. In the spring of 1878 he was appointed
city attorney and has filled that office at various times with the utmost
efficiency during a period in the aggregate of eight years. In the year
1878 he was elected to the office of prosecuting attorney, in which office
he served for two years. Since that time he has been but twice a candidate for public office. He was a candidate for circuit judge and for
membership in the state constitutional convention, and, although he ran
ahead of his ticket in his own county for both these offices, he met with
defeat. In 1912 Mr. Perry was a delegate to the Democratic national
convention at Baltimore, Maryland. Since I876 he has practiced law
continuously in Pontiac and ranks among the foremost in the county,
having participated in much important litigation, and is president of
the Bar Association of Oakland county. Both his taste and aptitude
fit him better for the trials of issues of law than of fact, and for that
reason he has successfully argued a large number of cases before the
Michigan supreme court. He has accumulated a large law library and
an extensive collection of miscellaneous books. He has traveled very
extensively through the United States and in the summer of I9o8 spent
three months in Europe with his wife.. Although a member of a fishing club, he has not caught a fish nor
fired a gun, with the exception of one season, in thirty years, and has
no taste for sports of any kind, preferring to travel or hunt fossils
from a rock ledge. He has made a specialty of geology and microscopy
and has spent many hours of recreation in gathering fossils and examining microscopical specimens. He has a large cabinet of fossils and
geological specimens of different kinds and has a fine collection of
books on the subject of geology. He is a member of the National
Geographic Society.
On Christmas day, 1873, Mr. Perry was united in marriage with
Sallie Hoffman, who had been one of his assistants in the Ovid Union
School. They have one son,-Stuart H. Perry, who was graduated
from the literary department of the University of Michigan in I894
with the degree of A.B., and from the law department two years later.
He then entered into partnership with his father under the firm name
of A. & S. H. Perry. For a year prior to August I, I9OI, the firm
maintained a branch office in the city of Detroit, under the personal
charge of the junior partner. At that time, August I, I9OI, Stuart H.
Perry retired from the firm to become the editor of the Oakland County