For an extensive obituary, see The Abbeville Press and Banner, Abbeville, South Carolina, 15 May 1878, pg.3. Newspaper online at Library of Congress, Chronicling America - Historic American Newspapers.
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Thomas Chiles PERRIN was born on 1 Oct 1805 at the Perrin plantation on Hard Labor Creek, Abbeville District, South Carolina, located about 15 miles south of Abbeville village. The third child and second son of Samuel and Eunice Chiles Perrin, Thomas Chiles Perrin was given the name of his mother's oldest brother, Thomas (White) Chiles.

As a lawyer, a railroad President, a state senator, and large plantation owner, Thomas Chiles Perrin became a political, business, and social leader in ante bellum South Carolina. Chairman of the Abbeville District delegation, he was the first signer of the Ordinance of Secession enacted by South Carolina in 1860, and in the final days of the Civil War members of the Confederate cabinet stayed at his Abbeville mansion on their retreat after the fall of Richmond.

EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE
His education included preparatory studies at Union Academy in Abbeville District. He attended the College of South Carolina at Columbia, South Carolina, and graduated in 1826 with an A.B. He then applied himself to the study of law under the instruction of established attorneys in Abbeville, and on 15 May 1828 he was admitted to the South Carolina Bar at age twenty-two.
On 19 Jan 1830, at age 24, Thomas married Jane Eliza WARDLAW, age 18, daughter of James WARDLAW and Hannah CLARKE, at Quay-Wardlaw House, the home of the bride, in Abbeville.

PROFESSIONAL CAREER.
Thomas Chiles Perrin was in the practice of law at Abbeville, South Carolina until 1853, when he resigned from his law firm to devote himself full time to the presidency of the Greenville and Columbia Railroad Company, a position he was elected to in July 1852, and held throughout the Civil War.

POLITICAL CAREER.
Thomas began his political career serving as Intendent (Mayor) of Abbeville during 1839-1840. He was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1842 and 1844, and from 1846-1847 he represented the Abbeville District in the South Carolina Senate. In 1868 he was the unsuccessful Democratic party candidate for Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina.

LAND AND RESIDENCES.
Thomas Chiles Perrin lived in the town of Abbeville after his college days. He also owned two plantations in Abbeville District: 1200 acre "Cotton Level" and "Fonville" of 1500 acres. In 1856, Thomas began the construction of a new house in Abbeville Village, which was described in the Independent Press of September 24, 1858 as "one of the finest mansions in the state", and as the "ornament and pride of the village". More about the house may be read on the memorial page of his wife, Jane Eliza Perrin.

CIVIL WAR YEARS.
During the war Thomas continued as President of the Greenville and Columbia Railroad, which faced an increasing burden transporting troops, munitions, and supplies for the Confederacy. The Greenville and Columbia ran a branch line into Abbeville, and throughout the war years the engineer signaled the battlefield news as he approached the town. Eagerly the townspeople awaited the jubilant blowing of the whistle from miles outside of town when the news was good. If news was bad the train proceeded silently into town. The tolling of its bell was the most dreaded sound of all, for it signaled the message that it bore news of the loss of life.
Abbeville suffered terrible losses in the war. Although the town itself was not a scene of battle or destroyed in the line of Sherman's march, a heavy toll was taken in life. The Abbeville District lost three hundred and forty-nine men in the Civil War, almost five times their loss of seventy-two men in World War II. Nearly every family was touched by the death of at least one son or brother or father. Four sons of Thomas and Jane Eliza Perrin served in the Civil War. Two were killed, one at Gaines Mill and the other at Chancellorsville. A third son was taken prisoner, but survived. Thomas Perrin also lost his youngest brother and law partner, Col. James Monroe Perrin.

FINAL DAYS OF THE CONFEDERACY.
By Spring of 1865, the Southern cause was all but over. President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis, with his Cabinet, had escaped the capitol of Richmond and the remnants of the southern government was on the run towards Mississippi.
Hannah Clarke Perrin, twenty nine year old daughter of Thomas Chiles Perrin, wrote a memoir of their stay in Abbeville. She wrote that Secretary of State Judah Benjamin and his staff worked during that afternoon and late into the night in the Perrin library where they signed eight thousand discharges for Confederate soldiers. Hannah Perrin relates, "During the day Mr. Benjamin called father into the library where he had been burning the official papers. He pointed to the seal (made of solid silver and kept in a small box) which was lying on the table and said he did not know what to do with it, as he could not burn it and yet he was unwilling for the Federals to get it, and asked for a hatchet that he might deface it. Father suggested that he throw it into the Savannah River which he had to cross, and he said he would do it." The Davis party left Abbeville in the early morning hours of the next day. Presumably, the Seal of the Confederacy was thrown into the Savannah River as they crossed into Georgia, as Thomas Perrin had suggested. Jefferson Davis was captured by the Union forces a week later in Georgia, and imprisoned for treason against the United States.

RECONSTRUCTION YEARS.
The years after the War were difficult ones for the south and for the Perrins personally. Abbeville was occupied by Yankee Federal troops until 1876. Thomas resumed the practice of law after the War with his son-in-law, James S. Cothran. In 1868 Thomas Perrin was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor of the state of South Carolina.

RELIGION AND COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES.
Thomas and Jane Perrin were members of the Presbyterian Church. Thomas was an Elder of the Upper Long Cane Meeting House from 1850 until 1868, and on April 22, 1868, he was one of the founders of the new Presbyterian Church in Abbeville Village. On that date he became an Elder of the new Church, a position which he held until his death.
Over the years Thomas Perrin's activities in the community and in his church were numerous. In addition to being a Ruling Elder of the Presbyterian Church for many years, he was President of the Bible Society of Abbeville. He was President of the Board of Directors of the Theological Seminary at Columbia. He served as Trustee of his alma mater, the South Carolina College, from 1857 to 1862, and was a Trustee of The Citadel in 1864, and of Davidson College in North Carolina from 1874-1878.

DEATH AND BURIAL
He died suddenly of a heart attack on 14 May 1878 in Abbeville, Abbeville Co., South Carolina, at age 72. The previous evening he attended a meeting of the Deacon's court of the Church of Abbeville, and retired about 10 p.m. without complaints. About midnight, he was seized with "palpitations of the heart", and died before the Doctor reached the house. Burial was in Upper Long Cane Cemetery, Abbeville, Abbeville Co., South Carolina.

Documents pertaining to his Presidency of the Greenville and Columbia Railroad, his Presbyterian Church activities, his legal practice, cotton speculation, and other business papers are filed in the Thomas Chiles Perrin Papers in the Special Collections Department of the Perkins Library at Duke University. Other papers relating to his plantations, slave purchases, his home in Abbeville, and additional business papers are in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Written by Mary Lou Perrin Bailey, a great-great granddaughter.