Thomas Handasyd Perkins is one of ten children born to James Perkins and Elizabeth Peck in and eighteen-year span.

When Perkins was twelve, he was in the crowd that had first heard the Declaration of Independence read to the citizens of Boston.

The family had planned to send Perkins to Harvard College, but he had no interest in a college education.

In 1779 he began working, and in 1785 when he turned twenty-one he became legally entitled to a small bequest that had been left to him by his grandfather Thomas Handasyd Peck, a Boston merchant who dealt largely in furs and hats.

When China opened the port of Canton to foreign businesses in 1785, Perkins had become one of the first Boston merchants to engage in the China trade.

He had sailed on the Astrea to Canton in 1789 with a cargo including ginseng, cheese, lard, wine, and iron.

On the trip back, it carried tea and silk cloth.

Perkins has engaged in the slave trade at Cap-Haïtien in Saint Domingue until its end in 1793.