Judge Albert G. and Harriet Elizabeth Grimes Perry

The marker honors the judge; the town has its own start. The Handbook of Texas says no townsite existed until 1872, when the Waco and Northwestern division of the Houston and Texas Central built from Bremond to Ross. A post office called Peyton opened in 1876 and was renamed Perry in 1883 for Albert G. Perry. In 1905 the district had one school for 59 White students and two schools for 83 Black students. By the mid-1880s it had four steam gristmills and gins and a hotel. Its schools joined Marlin's in 1965.

What the plaque says

Judge Albert G. and Harriet Elizabeth Grimes Perry Tennessee native Albert G. Perry (1807-1874) began the study of law at age sixteen in his brother's Alabama law office. He became a successful attorney, but in 1831 left for Texas, settling in Washington, where he opened a law office. The following year, on January 8, he married Harriet Elizabeth Grimes (1816-1888), the daughter of pioneer Jesse Grimes (1788-1866), signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. In 1826, Harriet had arrived in Texas with her father and eight siblings, one of whom, Albert Calvin Grimes, later died at the Alamo. In late 1833 or early 1834, Perry became secretary to the Alcalde at Sarahville de Viesca in Robertson's Colony (in present Falls County), and in 1835 was first lt. of a frontier defense Ranger company. He was a member of the Viesca Committee of Safety, and was a delegate to the Consultation of 1835. The Perrys lived in Washington from 1836 to 1843, when they moved to Anderson in present Grimes County. In 1852 they moved to Falls County, where they farmed, and he was county and district judge. In 1883, when the railroad bypassed the community of Peyton, a new settlement developed along the rail line and was named Perry in honor of Albert G. Perry. (1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Armstrong Browning Library — 16 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 16 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 17 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 17 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.

More markers nearby

• Indian Battlefield — steps away
• Site of the Home of George Morgan — 3.5 mi
• Riesel — 5.3 mi
• Friedens Evangelical and Reformed United Church of Christ — 5.3 mi