The Revolutionary War service of William Perkins is documented in this subseries. The correspondence begins in 1777 when Perkins was a captain in Colonel John Crane's Battalion of Artillery with a letter from Major General Henry Knox ordering Perkins to raise a company in Peekskill, New York. Letters to Perkins after he attained the rank of major date from 1779 to 1781 and document his service overseeing military stores at Providence, Rhode Island. Correspondence from 1783 to 1794 documents efforts by Perkins to collect additional pay for his military service. A highlight of this subseries is a 1 April 1780 letter in which Perkins is ordered to find a carriage to transport a nurse and her children "staying at the college" to their home in Charlestown [Massachusetts] (Box 1, Folder 1).

This subseries ranges from the undated appointment of William Perkins as captain in Colonel John Crane's Battalion of Artillery to his appointment as lieutenant colonel by brevet in 1787. Included are acts and resolves by the Rhode Island General Assembly and the Rhode Island Council of War dating from 1779 to 1781 which concern the disposition of military stores housed at Providence. Also included is the 1777 appointment of Seth Sprague as an ensign in Captain Caleb Carr's company of the Rhode Island Militia (Sprague's connection to Perkins is not clear). A highlight of this subseries is a 3 May 1783 finding by a West Point investigatory committee (on which Perkins served) which orders a Lieutenant Campbell to apologize to Colonel Crane for slandering him (Box 1, Folder 5).

The bulk of the documents in this subseries list the soldiers who served under Captain William Perkins in Col. John Crane's Battalion of Artillery, including those who served in 1778 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The subseries begins with an unusually detailed February 1777 roll which provides soldiers' birthplaces, ages, "complexions," hair color, eye color, and height. Additional rolls document the service of the company at unstated locations from February 1777 to March 1778, at Valley Forge from April to June 1778, at an unstated location in July 1778, and at Providence, Rhode Island, in September 1778. Also included is a recreated roster of the Massachusetts Regiment of Artillery created in or after 1812 by H. Burbeck, who stated that "old age, 93, must be my apology of interlining" (Box 2, Folder 3).

Included in this subseries are payroll records of soldiers who served under William Perkins from 1776 to 1778 in Col. John Crane's Battalion of Artillery. Locations are not stated on many of the records, but those on which locations are noted are datelined July 1776 at New York [City?]; December 1776 at "Camp Penselvania;" February 1777 at Peekskill, [New York]; August 1777 at "Cross Roads, Bucks County," [Pennsylvania]; and November 1777 at "Camp Whitemarsh Church." The 31 July 1776 New York [City?] record is notable in that it states that the men listed received "pay for our butter and pease" (Box 1, Folder 6).

This subseries includes returns dated from May 1778 to August 1781. The earliest return was created at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and the remainder were created at the following locations (all presumably in Rhode Island): Providence, Greenwich, Newport, Tiverton, and Middleton. The 23 May 1778 return is of special note as on the reverse it carries a receipt datelined Valley Forge, 24 May 1778, which acknowledges the receipt of shirts, shoes, and "stockens" sent to soldiers serving at Valley Forge "as a gift from the Massachusetts state" (Box 2, Folder 5).

This subseries documents is comprised of receipts which document the standard issue of equipment and clothing used by soldiers who served under Perkins. They also document the movements of William Perkins from Boston in January 1776, to New York [City?] in July 1776, to Peekskill [New York] in February 1777, to "Camp Cross Roads, Bucks County" [Pennsylvania] in August 1777, to various locations in Rhode Island from October 1778 to July 1781. The earliest document in the William Perkins Papers, a receipt dated 8 July 1775, is included in this subseries (Box 1, Folder 7).

Correspondence and other documents related to the service of William Perkins as commander of the Castle Island fort are included in this subseries. Documents range in date from 2 November 1785 (his appointment) to July 1798. Included are four documents signed by Mass. Gov. John Hancock and dated 25 August 1787, 11 April 1788, 12 September 1788, and 19 March 1789 (Box 1, Folder 11; Box 2, Folder 7). A 10 October 1793 letter from Samuel Adams requests that Perkins fire the guns of the castle during Hancock's funeral (Box 1, Folder 12).

Two documents are included in this subseries. The first is the 15 November 1798 appointment of Perkins to the post of inspector and measurer of Boston. The second is a customs record of the vessel George William which arrived at Boston from Tobago in December 1801 with a cargo of rum. The second item is not signed by Perkins.

This subseries includes a Perkins family tree [1871?], family letters written between 1782 and 1856, a list of Perkins family domiciles from 1785 to 1799, receipts for child care from 1796 to 1797, a list of vital records of the children of William Perkins, a description of the Perkins family crest, a newspaper obituary of Elizabeth Perkins (the wife of William's son Samuel), and correspondence with the Society of the Cincinnati dated 1826 and 1878.

Two documents are included in this subseries. The first is an unsigned patriotic address to "gentlemen of the military" on the occasion of an unspecified anniversary. The subject is the Revolutionary War and the possibility of renewed conflict, which suggests that it might have been written during the period immediately preceding the War of 1812. The author of the address states that he was a witness to the Revolutionary War and that he had been absent from his native place "nearly twenty long years." The second document is an unsigned poem entitled "On the Decease of a Late Eminent Christian" which is a lamentation on the death of an unnamed wife and mother.

Included in this subseries are items of unknown relation to the Perkins family. They are a $20 check dated 1796 and signed by Aaron Burr, a signature of Edward Everett clipped from a letter, two documents concerning the 1790 Middlesex County prosecution of Ezra Blood for the theft of a chain, and an 1820 land deed describing the transfer of Dorchester, Massachusetts, land from John Amory to Jonathan Amory.