Jackson Michigan News and Information, News for Jackson MI
The person who found him was Henry A. Perine (1831-1891) who owned 80 acres of land along both sides Homer Road (now Irwin Avenue) in Albion Township just north of Duncan’s landlocked acreage below it.
Perine lived in a farmhouse (since demolished) on the south side of Homer Road just west of the Village limits. After Henry moved with his family to Missouri in the early 1870s, his property was purchased by W.J. Walker (1873 atlas) and later by Albert Braden (1894 atlas). Today half of Perine’s land would be the site of Albion Memory Gardens north of Irwin, with the remaining half continuing south to where Duncan’s property line began. Duncan would have to pass through Perine’s property in order to get to Irwin Avenue into town. It was at the end of the Civil War that some Perine family members moved to Albion from the Clarendon-Tekonsha area. Henry’s brother Jacob (1840-1942) later became Albion’s last surviving Civil War veteran.
An account of Mr. Perine’s discovery of Duncan’s body reads as such: “On Thursday last, a Mr. Perine was in his woods, which adjoin the hermit’s premises, and feeling cold he went to the hovel to warm. Seeing no tracks about the premises since the storm of Sunday, and hearing the cattle low, he mistrusted something was wrong, and looking through a hole by the door, saw the old man in a sitting position, covered with snow.”
“Being satisfied that he was dead, Mr. Perine communicated it to Esquire Williams, and a jury was summoned, who, together with Coroner O’Donoughue, visited the premises and found him frozen stiff. After examining the premises quite thoroughly, they brought him to the engine house and placed him in a large cauldron kettle of water. Friday afternoon an examination of the body and hovel showed that he had undoubtedly been sick, and he was badly burned, and becoming exhausted, fell into a stupor and froze to death. This is the substance of the jury’s verdict.”
Henry Perine and family moved back to Tekonsha around 1890, and he died there December 20, 1891. He had been suffering from blindness and other ailments for several years. From our Historical Notebook this week we present a photograph of Henry A. Perine, who discovered the body of David Duncan, also pictured here. How many of our readers have heard of the Albion Hermit?
