On the sixth day of December, in the year 1813, a marriage took place in the parish of 
Sussex, Kings County, New Brunswick, between Richard Perkins and Catherine DeLong. 
Catherine was four  years older than Richard, who was only nineteen at the time. It is fairly 
certain that, this man, Richard, was the same person who, on the 25th of April in 1827, 
petitioned for land in a grant in which he was depicted as being: ".  .  . a British subject, born 
in the Province, where he has always resided, aged 33 years, is married, and has six sons and a 
daughter .  .  ." 
	Though there is much to be desired in the quantity and the type of records available to
researchers in New Brunswick in order to make the needed parental connections, due to the
foregoing petition and many of the census records, and by use of the process of elimination,
there is very little doubt that the Richard Perkins and Catherine DeLong who were married in
1813 were the parents of Isaac Perkins who married Mary Jane Buchanan in August of 1850.
These last two people were the great-grandparents of my mother, Ellen Theresa Perkins.
	The parents of Richard Perkins has not yet been resolved, but at the present time all leads
point to the Loyalist Isaac Perkins who settled in New Brunswick in 1783 and came from either
New York or New Jersey. I would appreciate hearing from anyone reading this who knows any 
more about him.  Thus, this writing is mainly concerned with Catherine and I will show a few
of the reasons for selecting her parents from the records.
	Fortunately, there were fewer men with the surname of DeLong who settled in New
Brunswick as Loyalists in the last part of the 18th century than those with the surname of
Perkins. The four known men with the name DeLong that can be shown were in New
Brunswick were: Aaron, John, Simon, and Abram. All had served in the Loyal American
Regiment. Thanks to the diligence of William Tufts of Ontario we now know that the first three
were brothers, that they had served in this regiment for six years, from 1777 to 1783. John
DeLong, a Sargeant, settled at Long Island on the St. John River in 1783, Simon went to Nova
Scotia to settle, and Aaron, who arrived in Gagetown in 1785, possibly lived on the Kingston
Peninsula for some years before he eventually settled down at Millstream in Sussex  parish.
	On April 12,  1785, Aaron DeLong petitioned for Lot #20 at Gagetown and less than a year
later, on the 26th of January of 1786, along with Rufus Green, John Bookhout, Isaac Hall, and
John Green, he petitioned for 250 acres in the interior on Hammond River.
	They claimed they were some of the first Loyalists who emigrated and yet they: "remained
unprovided for with lands except Rufus Green who drew a lot of about 90 acres which is very
inconsiderable as he has a large family."
	This petition was granted by council on 26 January 1787 provided ".  .  . they do not
interfere with the subscribers to the west of Moreland Road." Later petitions, however, showed
this land vacant in 1809, Aaron having moved on to Millstream.
	Both Aaron and Simon had daughters named Catherine, Simon's daughter being born in
1786 and Aaron's daughter born, 29 October 1789. In the census of 1851, Catherine's age is
listed as 61 years and, thus, she was born about 1790 and certainly not in 1786. In addition, both
Aaron DeLong and Richard Perkins, by the early 1800's had settled in the same area of
Studholms Millstream which can be proved by various land grants.  Their 400 acre tracts
abutted each other and were about five miles north and a little west of the village of Sussex
where Catherine and Richard were married.
	From these facts and others the conclusion can finally be reached that the Catherine
DeLong who married Richard Perkins in 1813 is without a doubt the daughter of Aaron DeLong
and his wife, Mary Kierstede. And it is through Catherine's parents that we are able to trace 
our ancestral lines all the way back to New Amsterdam and beyond.
	Catherine and Richard are known to have had eight children, including, Isaac, who was
born in 1822. Isaac's gravestone, located in the United Baptist Church Cemetery in Centrefield,
Carleton County, New Brunswick in the area that used to be called Perkins Corner, has 
inscribed on it the following:

							
					Isaac  Perkins
				Died May 2, 1885 age 63 years
					Mary Jane Perkins
				born 1830 - - Died  1904
						      
			'The praise of him who sleeps in earth,
			The pleasant memory of his worth.
			The hope to meet when life is past.
			Shall cheer the sorrowing heart at last'
					 
	The other children in Richard and Catherine's family were: Catherine b. 5/6/1815 ;
Aaron b. 1817/18 ; David ; John b. 1824 ; Joel b. 1827 ; Charles b. 1830 ; and another son whose
name remains unknown.
	In the census of 1861 for Carleton County, Richard Perkins is listed with the family of his
son-in-law, John Clarke and we can assume his wife, Catherine, has died. Ten years later,
Richard can be found once again, listed in the census, but now residing with his son John and
his wife, Frances Sharpe. At this time Richard is 76 years old and we never see his name again.
	With the establishment of the relationship of Richard Perkins and Catherine DeLong and
with the discovery of Catherine's parents we are now able to focus our attention on two main 
branches of our ancestral tree for it is through Aaron DeLong and Mary Kierstede that my own
descendants carry the genes of the people who settled New Amsterdam and the Hudson River
Valley and then migrated again to settle the wild forests of New Brunswick.