"For many years, Joshua Newton Perkins was considered one of the most influential and honorable members of the New York Stock Exchange. He also was an office of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company and the Illinois Central Railroad. He came to Norwich about 1850, a wealthy man retired at a relatively young age. Perkins was born in 1804 in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, the son of John and Elizabeth (Thomas) Perkins. He apparently identified himself as J. Newton or Newton as early as his college days—J. Newton Perkins is listed among the 1826 graduates of Hamilton College in New York. Perkins lived for some time in Ithaca, NY, where he married Elizabeth Bishop in 1831. Her father, a deacon of the Congregational Church, descended from the Bishop family, which originated in Lisbon, CN. J. Newton and Elizabeth Perkins were the parents of three children. Perkins was cashier of the Norwich Bank in 1836 when he left for Cincinnati to become cashier at Ohio Life and Trust Co. A few years later, Perkins move to NYC, where he became a leading Banker and financier. He accumulated a fortune of about $60,000 ($27.9 million), retired to Norwich and built the Italian villa later known as Pinehurst. In 1859, Perkins became a director of the eight-year-old Illinois Central Railroad..."