PERKINS, Ruffin Trousdale, M.D., Lafourche, then Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller
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Louisiana:  Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and
Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), pp. 353-354.  Edited by Alc?e
Fortier, Lit.D.  Published in 1914, by Century Historical Association.

Perkins, Robert J., was born in Assumption parish, La., Aug. 6, 1868.  His
father, Robert Jones Perkins, was born in Lafourche parish, and was a son of
Robert W. F. H. Perkins, who was a native of North Carolina and of English
lineage, and the first of his family in Louisiana.  He settled in Lafourche
parish and was a sugar planter.  His son, who was the father of the subject of
this personal sketch, was a veteran of the war of secession, and served with
gallantry as a Confederate soldier, but when the war was over, hostility was
over with him, and his subsequent life was that of a p
lanter in the main.  He
was a graduate of the University of Louisiana, and for awhile just after the
war he taught school.  He became a lawyer, but planting was his real
occupation, one that he loved and in which he was numbered among the most
progressive of his time.  He died in 1896 at the age of 63 years.  He married
Mary Louise Beasley, who was a native of Louisiana and a daughter of James W.
Beasley, also a native of Louisiana, his people coming to the state in the
early days from Tennessee.  James W. Beasley was a successful planter and
lived to the advanced age of 85 years.  Mrs. Perkins is now in the 71st year
of her life.  She bore her husband 5 children, one of whom is Ruffin T.
Perkins, M. D., of New Orleans, and another being Robert J. Perkins, whose
name forms the caption or this personal sketch.  From childhood to the age of
about 14 years Robert J. Perkins was reared in Lafourche parish, thereafter in
Jefferson parish, and amidst the scenes and experiences of plantation life. 
He attended the high school of the old Louisiana university, afterward the
Tulane university.  He was a member of the first class to graduate from the
academic department of Tulane university, graduating in 1889.  For awhile
thereafter Mr. Perkins was employed as a chemist by the American Sugar
Refining Co. in New Orleans.  His ambition was 
to become a lawyer.  He studied
law while working as chemist, and in 1893 he graduated from the law department
of Tulane university, and shortly afterward entered upon his professional
career in Jefferson parish where he served ably for 9 years as district
attorney.  He then came to New Orleans, where he soon built up a lucrative
practice, and has since resided.  In 1896 Mr. Perkins married Miss Mary
Virginia Logan, daughter of William Y. Logan, and 5 children have been born
unto the marriage. Mr. Perkins holds prominent relations in fraternal and club
life.  He has taken both York and Scottish Rite Masonry, being a 32d degree
Scottish Rite and a Knight Templar Mason, and also a member of the Mystic
Shrine.  He is a member of the Boston, Louisiana, the Chess, Checkers and
Whist clubs, and other social organizations, and in politics a democrat.