Perry, Lewis (1877-1970)

Lewis Perry, son of Arthur Latham Perry and Mary Brown (Smedley), was born in Williamstown on January 3, 1877.  He was educated at the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, N.J., and later at Williams College, where he graduated as class president in 1898. He received an M.A. and an L.H.D. from Princeton and honorary L.H.D.s from Dartmouth, Yale, Amherst, the University of New Hampshire, and Harvard.

Lewis taught English at Williams from 1901 to 1914, when he took over the position of headmaster at Phillips
Exeter Academy.  He held this post for thirty-one years and built the school into the nation?s top preparatory school before retiring in 1946.  Lewis also served as the national president of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, which his father had helped found at Williams, and he was the first alumnus to receive the Rogerson Cup, given for “outstanding service, loyalty and achievement.”

Lewis was married twice: first to Margaret Hubbell, who died in 1928 and left behind Lewis Jr. and Emily, then in 1935 to his first wife’s sister, Mrs. Juliette Adams, with whom he had two more daughters, Mrs. Edward C. Buddy and Mrs. Williams L. Peltz.  Lewis Perry died in 1970.

By Patrick McCurdy (Class of 2002)