Thomas Handasyd Perkins, an American merchant, born in Boston, Mass., Dec. 15, 1764, died in Brookline, Jan. 11, 1854. After spending some years in a counting house, he became associated with his brother James in a mercantile house in Santo Domingo. The climate proving prejudicial to his health, he returned to Boston. In 1789 he went as supercargo to Batavia and Canton, and afterward made several successful ventures in the Pacific, on the N. W. coast of America, and in China. He then formed a partnership with his brother James, which for the next 30 years was remarkable for the extent, foresight, and success of its enterprises. In 1805 he was elected to the Massachusetts senate, and for 18 or 20 years subsequently he was most of the time a member of one or the other branch of the legislature. He heartily aided many schemes of practical philanthropy, and was one of the chief contributors to the funds of the Massachusetts general hospital and the Boston Athenaeum. In 1833 he gave his mansion house and grounds in Pearl street, worth over $50,000 for a blind asylum (now the Perkins institution and Massachusetts asylum for the blind), on condition that $50,000 should be raised as a fund for its support.