Perrysville was platted and surveyed in 1825 by James Blair on a bluff on the west side of the Wabash River. The town is named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of the Battle of Lake Erie.

 

It became a local center for shipping products to New Orleans on flatboats via the Wabash, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, and it was also able to receive heavy equipment and manufactured items on steamboats.