Justin Perkins

1805-1869. American Congregational missionary to Persia. Born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, and educated at Westfield Academy, Amherst College, and Andover Theological Seminary, he was ordained in 1833. He went to Persia under the American Board and there labored among Nestorian Christians. In 1835 he established his mission in Urumiah and founded several schools and a mission press from which issued many of his works, notably Missionary Life in Persia (1861). A noted scholar, Perkins translated the Bible into Syriac and was the first to reduce the Nestorian vernacular to writing. He acquired valuable Syriac manuscripts for European libraries.