William F. Perry

William F. Perry (1823-1901) was Alabama’s first superintendent of public education and served from 1854 to 1858. He then served as the president of the Tuskegee Female College in Tuskegee (present-day Huntingdon College in Montgomery). During the Civil War, Perry was an officer in Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and took part in the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Little Round Top, and the Second Battle of Deep Bottom, among other conflicts. After the war, he resumed his career in education at Ogden College in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Photo courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History