San Diego County Biographies
 
WILLIAM PERIGO

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


a retail liquor dealer of San Diego, was born in Brooklyn, Susquehanna County, 
Pennsylvania, July 25, 1829, his parents being natives of New England. At the 
age of eighteen he was apprenticed for three years to learn the cabinet‑makers' 
trade at Kingston, where he remained, working at his trade until September, 
1862.
He then enlisted in the army, Company A, Captain George A. Stone, One Hundred 
and Fifty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, Colonel Warren in command. The regiment 
went forward to Washington, then to Arlington Heights, and then to the old Bull 
Run battle�ground, where they passed the winter on picket duty; in the spring of 
1863 to Fredericksburg, where, under the command of General Joe Hooker, they 
took part in the battle of Chancellorsville, and there they remained until they 
went forward to the battle of Gettysburg, General Meade being 
commander-in-chief, and General Reynolds in command of the First Army Corp, in 
the third division of which they were placed. They met General Early's corps of 
the Confederate army and were badly cut up, the subject being wounded and taken 
prisoner, but, being able to walk, was paroled and remained in Gettysburg until 
July 13, when he was sent to Jarvis Hospital, at Baltimore, and on August 13, 
1863, was discharged from his regiment and returned to his home in Brooklyn, 
Pennsylvania, where he remained until December, 1863, when he again went to the 
front as sutler's clerk, under A. G. Plume, of New York, sutler for the New York 
Zouaves, which was composed of the re-enlisted of the Fifth New York Zouaves, 
and the Fourteenth, of Brooklyn, New York, under General Winslow, of the Fifth 
Corps, General Warren in command. They were in the battle of Weldon Railroad, 
which the corps took and held. The subject remained with the sutler until 
December, 1864, when he again returned to his home, remaining till the spring of 
1865, when he joined a corps of engineers and went to the Black Hills, making 
the preliminary survey of the Union Pacific Railroad, corps in charge of J. A. 
Evans, remaining until November, 1865, when, on account of cold weather, they 
returned to Brooklyn and there passed the winter. About May 15, 1866, he went to 
Omaha, then to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he joined a party of miners and went 
to Pinas Altas (tall pines), New Mexico, arriving about the middle of October, 
and remaining about two years engaged in quartz and placer mining, with but 
little success. He next went to Fort Cummings, New Mexico, where he spent one 
year as clerk in the Quartermaster's department, leaving July 1, 1869, for San 
Diego; coming through Arizona by freight wagon to Tucson, and then taking the 
stage at $100 per ticket, and arriving at San Diego September 13, 1869. For 
about ten years he worked as a carpenter and day laborer, but in 1872 opened a 
saloon on Fifth street, between E and D. In October, 1883, he went to Los 
Angeles, but, preferring the locality and climate of San Diego, returned in 
June, 1884, continuing in the business of retail liquor dealer.
 
SOURCE:  An Illustrated History of Southern California:  Embracing the Counties 
of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California� Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890.  p.-  341-342