George Perkins was born in 1852 to Henry and Martha Perkins of Worcester, Massachusetts. He married Emiline Silvers, who was born in 1850 in New Jersey, in 1880. During the 1990s, the Perkins were active in in the Spiritualist community. George gave lectures in Boston and Chicago in 1891 and the next year he was joined by Emaline in Brooklyn, New York. At Maple Dell Camp it was stated that their participants included, “Brother George Perkins, musical director, speaker and test medium, and his good wife, who is also a good clairvoyant and test medium.”
In 1892, George published a new song book, The Spiritual Evangelist, that was “full of catchy melodies and appropriate hymns, for Spiritual meetings and circles.” By 1895, both George and Emaline were well-known platform test mediums who traveled through the northeastern United States, including Washington D.C.
At the 7th annual convention in Chicago, George was listed as musical director, a Spiritualist missionary and worked as an usher during the meeting. The Progressive Thinker, 28 October 1899, wrote, “I wish to say a word in commendation of Geo. F. Perkins, one of the most faithful and exemplary workers in this city, a man who stands without reproach and who is always faithful in the discharge of every duty that confronts him.” The article added, “Everyone who knows him and his wife knows there are no more faithful and conscientious laborers in the field, and also know that behind their mediumship is the element of character which is sometimes lacking in the more pretentious.”
During the late 1890s, Rev. George F. Perkins and Rev. Emaline Perkins led the Beacon of Light Spiritualist Church in Chicago. Two of their lecture topics were: “By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them” and “The Light of the World is Spirit.”
The Perkins moved west in 1900. In1901, George was listed as a singer, lecturer, and medium at the California state convention in San Francisco. Emeline passed in April of 1904 in San Francisco, and George resumed his lecture meetings at Odd Fellows Hall, San Fransico later that year. In 1905, he spoke and gave readings several times at the Union Spiritual Society in Oakland, presenting lectures on topics such as: “The Divine Three of the Origin of the Holy Trinity” and “Character.”
In 1906, George wrote to the Oakland Tribune, 25 Nov 1906, “Don’t you think the evangelists Simpson and Hibbard, at the Advent tent on Broadway, are over-stepping the boundary line of propriety and courtesy when they nightly abuse in the most emphatic language everybody and any organization that does not come under their particular endorsement? For weeks these men have used up all the dictionaries searching for words to express their contempt for every other religious denomination, more particularly the Roman Catholic and Spiritualists. And the President of the United States and our government do not escape their vitriolic tongues. Everyone has a right to advocate his conception of the truth and principles as set forth in the Bible, but I question any one’s right to insult and abuse all who do not conscientiously agree with them on these puzzling questions.”
George lived until at least 1930, when he was listed as a retired widower living in a rooming house in Oakland, California.