Perry was born on December 4, 1761, in Newport, Rhode Island, the third of the seven children of the Hon. James Freeman Perry and his wife, Mercy Hazard. He was a descendant of Edward Perry, a Quaker leader and pamphleteer, who emigrated from Devonshire, England, to Sandwich, Massachussets, about 1650.
There is no information about his education.
He enlisted with the Kingstown Reds and was with the army of Gen. John Sullivan in the Rhode Island campaign of 1778. He was on board the privateer General Mifflin when that vessel captured the Tartar and the Prosper and he took part in the siege of Charleston, South Carolina. He was at different times attached to the Continental ships the Queen of France and the Trumbull, and participated in the hard-fought battle between the last-named vessel and the Watt.
Four times taken prisoner, he was confined on the Jersey at New York, on the Concord at Charleston, South Carolina, and in the prisons at Tortola and Kinsale from which he escaped only after a long period of confinement.
For fourteen years after the Revolution Perry made voyages as master or supercargo to Europe, South America, and the East Indies. In June 1798, he entered the navy as captain and was placed in command of the General Greene, then under construction at Warren. A year later he was employed suppressing piracy on the north coast of Cuba, convoying merchantmen to the United States, and cruising on the Santo Domingo station. His last voyage in the naval war with France was to the mouth of the Mississippi River, where he took on board James Wilkinson, whom he conveyed to the United States.
He was retired from the navy under the peace establishment of 1801, and returned to the merchant service, making at least one voyage to the East Indies. He offered his services to the secretary of the navy early in the War of 1812 and received a temporary appointment as commandant of the Charlestown navy yard. After the war he held the office of revenue collector at Newport.
He died in 1818.
Christopher Raymond Perry served with distinction at the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, was taken as a prisoner two times and was promoted to the rank of Captain. He also commanded the frigate General Greene, that intercepted supplies to rebels fighting to overthrow General Toussaint Louverture who had led a successful slave revolt against the French in Haiti in 1791.
He became acquainted, during his sojourn at Kinsale, with Sarah Wallace Alexander, and when he made a voyage to Ireland in 1784 as mate of a merchant vessel, Miss Alexander embarked on board his ship for the return voyage to visit friends in Philadelphia. Before the ship reached America the young couple were betrothed and in August 1784, were married at the home of Dr. Benjamin Rush.
His five sons, including Oliver Hazard Perry, and Matthew Calbraith Perry, were naval officers, and two of his three daughters married naval officers - one, Ann Maria, marrying George Washington Rodgers. At one time there were seventeen cousins of the Perry family at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.
