Moses Henry Perley

1804-1862

Moses Henry Perley (lawyer, businessman, naturalist, author, newspaper owner, and public servant) was born in Maugerville, New Brunswick on 31 December 1804.  His father had died shortly before Perley was born, so his mother moved the family to Saint John. Perley studied law and was called to the bar in 1830. He was named New Brunswick’s Commissioner of Indian Affairs around 1841. He visited most of the colony's Wolastoqiyik and Mi'kmaq settlements, collected their testimony, and submitted his Report on Indian Settlements in 1842. In 1843 Perley was appointed an emigration agent. In the early 1840s he wrote articles for the magazine The London Sporting Review promoting New Brunswick to British sportsmen. He published a “Report on the Forest Trees of New Brunswick” in the London-based Simmonds Colonial Magazine and Foreign Miscellany in 1847. Between 1849 and 1852 he wrote Report on the Fisheries of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1849), Report on the Sea and River Fisheries of New Brunswick, Within the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Bay of Chaleur (1850), and Report Upon the Fisheries of the Bay of Fundy (1851), all of which were compiled in a one-volume omnibus entitled Reports on the Sea and River Fisheries of New Brunswick (1852). He wrote a Handbook of Information for Emigrants to New Brunswick (1854). In 1858 Perley was no longer in the post of emigration agent but stayed on as fishery commissioner. On a trip to the coast of Labrador on the ship Desperate, Perley died aboard ship on 17 August 1862 and was buried at Forteau, Labrador.

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

Saint John

Archival Material

• Moses Perley fonds and Perley Family papers
  ⌄
  Location

  New Brunswick Museum Archives

  Retrieval Number

  Black box over the map cabinets in 228 and Perley family CB DOC

  Date Range of Material

  1825-1877

  Extent

  1 cm of textual records

  Scope and Content Note

  Document (1851), with wampum attached, presented to Moses Perley by Mi'kmaq chiefs, recognizing Perley as sachem (honorary chief) of the Mi'kmaq Nation. Captain Henry Dunn O'Halloran and Lieutenant Rolland were also at the presentation.

  1. Inventory of real and personal estate of Israel Perley (Maugerville) with itemized appraisals by subscribers, 1813
  2. Card with Lord's prayer in Mi'kmaq language belonging to Moses Perley, commissioner for Indian affairs, ca. 1817
  3. Draft to Moses Perley, 1825
  4. Release, Jane Perley to Henry F. Perley (administrator of Moses Perley's estate) 1872
  5. Letters (including one from John Quinton to G.A. Perley), notes, crest, etc. re Perley family history, 1738-1876 ( items)
  6. Letter from Moses Perley (Liverpool) to his mother. 1839
  7. Genealogical Chart of the male descendants of Allen Perley published by Geo. Augustus Perley, May 1877.