Clay Perry
Encyclopedia
- For the American jazz musician, see Justin Clay PerryJustin Clay PerryJustin Clay Perry is an American jazz, pop, and Latin pianist best known for his arrangements heard behind numerous recording artists. He is a graduate of the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School in Tampa Bay where he studied classical and jazz piano and composition...
Clair Willard Perry (1887–1961), called Clay Perry, was an American writer and outdoorsman. He coined the term "spelunker".
Biography
Born in 1887 in Waupaca, WisconsinWaupaca, Wisconsin
Waupaca is a city in Waupaca County in the state of Wisconsin. The population was 5,676 at the 2000 census. The city is believed to be named after Sam Waupaca of the Potowatomi tribe....
, Perry moved to western Massachusetts as a young man. A novelist, short story writer, and journalist, in the 1930s he worked for the Federal Writers' Project
Federal Writers' Project
The Federal Writers' Project was a United States federal government project to fund written work and support writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program...
. He is best known as an amateur caver
Caving
Caving—also occasionally known as spelunking in the United States and potholing in the United Kingdom—is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems...
and as a writer on the caves of New England and the northeastern United States. He is credited with coining the term spelunker
Spelunker
Spelunker has several meanings.* In Caving, "spelunker" is sometimes a term for a person who explores caves.* Spelunker , a 1983 video game for various systems, including Atari and Nintendo....
in the 1940s. He was also the author of a light verse on Israel Bissell
Israel Bissell
Israel Bissell was a post rider in Massachusetts who alerted the American colonists of the British attack on April 19, 1775. He rode for four days and six hours covering the 345 miles from Watertown, Massachusetts to Philadelphia along the Old Post Road, shouting "To arms, to arms, the war has...
, whose ride in April 1775 to warn the colonies of the Battles of Lexington and Concord
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy , and Cambridge, near Boston...
was overshadowed in historical lore by that of Paul Revere
Paul Revere
Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...
. He died in 1961 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Its area code is 413. Its ZIP code is 01201...
.