The business necessities of his road, embarrassed and pressing as they were, united with his uniform self-forgetfulness, prevented his giving attention to his personal comfort and health, long after his friends saw the shadow of the destroyer falling upon his path. He was finally, in great prostration of health and strength, compelled to leave the active duties of the road and spent the latter part of the Winter of 1857-8 in the Southern States, but returned in the Spring with little or no improvement. He continued to fail; during the Summer and in the Fall of 1858 he again went South in the vain hope of at least physical relief, and died in Havana, Cuba, January 12th, 1859. His remains were embalmed and brought home by his physician who had accompanied him--and were interred at Warren, in Woodland Cemetery, where so many of his family repose around him. A special train from either end of the Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad brought the board of directors and an unusually large number of business and personal friends to join the long procession which followed "the last of earth" to its resting place. One of the editorial notices of his death, at the time, very justly remarks of him: He was a man of mark, and through strength of talent, moral firmness and urbanity of manner, wielded an influence seldom possessed by a man of his years. In addition to his remarkable business capacity, Mr. Perkins was a man of high literary taste, which was constantly improving and enriching his mind. He continued, even amid his pressing-business engagements, his habits of study and general reading. Mr. Perkins belonged to that exceptional class of cases in which great wealth, inherited, does not injure the recipient. An editorial of a Warren paper, mentioning his death, says: He was born in this town in 1821, and from his boyhood exhibited a mental capacity and energy which was only the promise of the brilliancy of his manhood. To his exertion, his personal influence and liberal investment of capital the country is indebted for the Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad. To his unremitting labor in this enterprise he has sacrificed personal comfort and convenience, and we fear, shortened his days by his labors and exposure in bringing the work to completion. Known widely as Mr. Perkins has been by his active part in public enterprises, his loss will be felt throughout the State, but we who have known him both as boy and man, have a deeper interest in him, and the sympathies of the people of Warren, with his relatives, will have much of the nature of personal grief for one directly connected with them. Said a classmate in the class meeting of 1862: