North Perry

• The Perry nuclear plant site in 1937

How North Perry began

North Perry is a small Lake Erie shoreline village carved out of Perry Township, first appearing in U.S. Census records in 1930 with 316 residents. Historically a nursery and farming community along the lakeshore, it is now best known as the site of the Perry Nuclear Generating Station, which began construction in Perry Township on the village's shore in 1974 and has operated commercially since 1987. The village's own historical society describes much of its early history as never having been formally collected, and continues to seek residents' old photographs and documents from the community's early settlement.

Where the name comes from

North Perry takes its name from its position north of, and originally within, Perry Township, itself named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's 1813 victory at the Battle of Lake Erie.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail or site inside North Perry is recorded in the 1878 county history's Perry chapter or the other sources consulted. Indian Point, the county's documented earthwork, lies in neighboring LeRoy Township despite sharing ZIP code 44081. Perry Township was one of four townships the Connecticut Land Company selected before its general drawing, on land ceded under the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

Timeline

1. 1815 — Perry Township, which includes the lakeshore where North Perry now lies, is organized, with its first election on July 1.
2. 1817 — Eleazar Parmly Sr. and his family settle on the Perry lake shore in March; four of his five sons become dentists who rise to the head of their profession.
3. 1826 — Eleazar Parmly Sr. dies on July 4, the day after being kicked by a horse.
4. 1829 — Elder Sidney Rigdon organizes the Church of Christ (Disciples) of Perry Township on August 7 with twenty-seven members, meeting in the Parmly schoolhouse on the lake shore.
5. 1841 — The meeting-house built by the Parmly brothers on the lake shore is moved to a new site and opened for worship on August 22, with fifty members.
6. 1868 — Jahial Parmly gives a ten-acre lot for the Disciples church's parsonage, and a house is built on it that year.
7. 1878 — The North Perry Methodist Episcopal church stands on the northeast corner of lot 73, one of three Methodist congregations in the township under the Rev. E. J. Smith.
8. 1930 — The earliest available census figure records North Perry's population at 316.
9. 1974 — Construction begins on the Perry Nuclear Generating Station, sited partly within North Perry on the Lake Erie shore, on October 1.
10. 1980 — North Perry's population peaks in the historical record at 897.
11. 1987 — Perry Nuclear Generating Station reaches full commercial operation on November 18.

Stories

The Parmlys of the lake shore

Eleazar Parmly Sr., a Connecticut man who had moved to Braintree, Vermont, and then to Canada, came to Perry to find his daughter Hannah, who had settled there with her husband Samuel Burridge in 1814 and had not been heard from for a long time. He liked the country, went back for his family and arrived in March 1817. After a short stay on the river road they settled on the lake shore, on land still held by the family in 1878. He died on July 4, 1826, a day after being kicked by a horse. Of his five sons, the 1878 county history says, four became dentists who reached the head of their profession and grew wealthy; Samuel, the last living, spent his summers in Painesville. The family's mark on the shore was religious as well: the Church of Christ organized by Sidney Rigdon in 1829 met in the Parmly schoolhouse on the lake shore, and David, Levi, Eleazar, Jahial and Samuel W. Parmly built a meeting-house there, later moved and opened in 1841.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · perrytownship-lake.com · en.wikipedia.org · painesville.com · archive.org

Lake Erie, drawn through a 48-inch pipe extending about 4,000 feet offshore from the Painesville Township plant The water here

• Lake County East Water Subdistrict99% of residentsLake Erie
• Ashtabula County Water System1% of residentsLake Erie

Power plants (1)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-01-23: county board of elections.

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-05-08

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

Cite this page