Elbridge Thomas Gerry (December 25, 1837 – February 18, 1927), usually called "Commodore" Gerry due to the office he held with the
New York Yacht Club
The New York Yacht Club (NYYC) is a private social club and yacht club based in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1844 by nine prominent sportsmen. The members have contributed to the sport of yachting and yacht design. ...
from 1886 to 1892, was an American lawyer and
reformer. His paternal grandfather was U.S. Vice President
Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Gerry ( ; July 17, 1744 – November 23, 1814) was an American Founding Father, merchant, politician, and diplomat who served as the fifth vice president of the United States under President James Madison from 1813 until his death i ...
.
Early life
Gerry was born on December 25, 1837, In
Charlestown, Rhode Island
Charlestown is a town in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 7,997 at the 2020 census.
History
Charlestown is named after King Charles II, and was incorporated in 1738. The area was formerly part of the town ...
, the son of
Thomas Russell Gerry, who was active in the
Sons of the American Revolution
The Sons of the American Revolution (SAR), formally the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR), is a federally chartered patriotic organization. The National Society, a nonprofit corporation headquartered in Louisvi ...
, and Hannah Green Goelet, of another prominent family. In 1857, Gerry graduated from
Columbia College, with honors.
During his time there he also joined the
Chi Psi fraternity, eventually becoming its national president.
His paternal grandfather was
Founding Father
The following is a list of national founders of sovereign states who were credited with establishing a state. National founders are typically those who played an influential role in setting up the systems of governance, (i.e., political system ...
,
Massachusetts Governor and U.S. Vice President
Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Gerry ( ; July 17, 1744 – November 23, 1814) was an American Founding Father, merchant, politician, and diplomat who served as the fifth vice president of the United States under President James Madison from 1813 until his death i ...
. His cousins included
Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Gerry ( ; July 17, 1744 – November 23, 1814) was an American Founding Father, merchant, politician, and diplomat who served as the fifth vice president of the United States under President James Madison from 1813 until his death i ...
, who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from
Maine
Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...
,
George Goelet Kip, and
Robert Walton Goelet, who was a financier and real estate developer in New York City. His maternal grandfather was the merchant and landowner
Peter P. Goelet and his great-grandfather was
Peter Goelet.
In 1879, he inherited $500,000 after the death of his unmarried uncle, Peter Goelet.
Career
After graduation from Columbia, he read law with
William Curtis Noyes and was admitted to the
New York bar in 1860. He later became partner with Noyes until his death, after which he joined William F. Allen and Vaughn Abbot, practicing as Allen, Abbott & Gerry.
In 1874, Gerry took up the case of
Mary Ellen McCormack, who had been abused by her foster parents, which he eventually argued before the
Supreme Court of New York
The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the superior court in the Judiciary of New York. It is vested with unlimited civil and criminal jurisdiction, although in many counties outside New York City it acts primarily as a court of civil ju ...
.
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
In 1875, as a result of Mary Ellen McCormack's case, he co-founded the
New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children "SPCC", sometimes called the
Gerry Society, together with Quaker philanthropist
John D. Wright and
Henry Bergh
Henry Bergh (August 29, 1813 – March 12, 1888) founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in April, 1866, three days after the first effective legislation against animal cruelty in the United States was passed ...
, who he had previously helped found the
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. SPCC was known as one of the first child protection societies in the country and he helped pass numerous laws to protect children.
Gerry served as vice-president of SPCC, then as Wright's successor from 1879 to 1901, and finally as legal advisor until his death. The Society's deputies, nicknamed "Gerry men" or "the cruelty," aroused controversy by enforcing various laws, including child labor laws concerning public performances and were allowed to remove children from homes. Some criticized their activities as interfering with family life, or for imposing aristocratic white Protestant values upon immigrants, many of whom were Catholic or black.
After 1903, many such child protection societies changed their focus from police to welfare work, following a Massachusetts model.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in the widely reviled 1918 case ''
Hammer v. Dagenhart'', found the new federal child protection law, the
Keating-Owen Act of 1916, violated the
Commerce Clause
The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution ( Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and amon ...
of the United States Constitution, in a case now known for its dissent by Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Cou ...
Two years later, with Gerry as the organization's legal advisor, SPCCC bought the former House of Mercy for use as a temporary facility to house juveniles awaiting judicial action, since they had previously either been held at stationhouses or jailed with adult prisoners, where they were often victimized. House of Mercy had been organized in 1863 by
Harriet Starr Cannon to assist abandoned and delinquent women and girls.
New York Yacht Club
In 1884 Gerry commissioned Harlan & Hollingsworth of Wilmington to build a 173 foot
steam yacht
A steam yacht is a class of luxury or commercial yacht with primary or secondary steam propulsion in addition to the sails usually carried by yachts.
Origin of the name
The English steamboat entrepreneur George Dodd (1783–1827) used the term ...
named SY Electra. This was perhaps the first such yacht to have electric lighting comprising 58 individual lights plus a strong searchlight. She was also the first yacht to have an icemaker on board, capable off creating 56 pounds of ice per day, to chill Gerry's champagne. The ship was broken in 1912.
Gerry was
Commodore of the
New York Yacht Club
The New York Yacht Club (NYYC) is a private social club and yacht club based in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1844 by nine prominent sportsmen. The members have contributed to the sport of yachting and yacht design. ...
. He held office from 1886 to 1892. The pilot boat
Elbridge T. Gerry was named in honor of him.
Politics and boards
Gerry was a notable member of
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local ...
, the Democratic political machine of
Boss Tweed
William Magear "Boss" Tweed (April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878) was an American politician most notable for being the political boss of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party's political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19t ...
, for more than 35 years. In 1867, he served as a delegate to
New York State Constitutional Convention
The Constitution of the State of New York establishes the structure of the government of the State of New York, and enumerates the basic rights of the citizens of New York. Like most state constitutions in the United States, New York's constituti ...
, but never again sought elective office.
From 1878 until 1912, he served as governor of the New York Hospital and was also a trustee of the
New York Life Insurance Company
New York Life Insurance Company (NYLIC) is the third-largest life insurance company and the largest mutual insurance, mutual life insurance company in the United States, and is ranked #69 on the 2025 Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. corporat ...
. From 1886 until 1888, Gerry served as chairman of the
New York State Commission on Capital Punishment, which replaced
hanging
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...
with the
electric chair
The electric chair is a specialized device used for capital punishment through electrocution. The condemned is strapped to a custom wooden chair and electrocuted via electrodes attached to the head and leg. Alfred P. Southwick, a Buffalo, New Yo ...
. For this decision, a proposed name for this method before "electrocution" was adopted was "gerrycide". He was also chairman of the New York City Commission on Insanity in 1892.
Personal life

In 1867, Gerry married Louisa Matilda Livingston. Louisa was the daughter of
Robert James Livingston and Louisa Matilda Storm and the granddaughter of
Maturin Livingston and Margaret Lewis. Margaret was the only child and sole heiress of Gov.
Morgan Lewis. Together, Elbridge and Louisa had six children:
* Angelica Livingston Gerry (1871–1960),
died unmarried. (See
Ancrum House.)
* Mabel Gerry (1872–1930),
who married Francis Saxham Elwes Drury (1859–1937), a widower, in 1925.
Drury had previously been married to Mary Gertrude Peek (1861–1921)
* Lillian Goelet Gerry (1873-1891)
* Margaret "Pearl" Louisa Gerry (1868-1872)
*
Robert Livingston Gerry, Sr. (1877–1957), who married Cornelia Averell Harriman (1884–1966), the second daughter of railroad executive
E. H. Harriman and his wife
Mary Williamson Averell
Mary Williamson Averell Harriman (July 22, 1851 – November 7, 1932) was an American philanthropist and the wife of railroad executive E. H. Harriman. Born in New York to a successful family, Averell married Harriman in 1879. Averell's father ...
, in 1908.
*
Peter Goelet Gerry (1879–1957), U.S. Representative and Senator from
Rhode Island
Rhode Island ( ) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Is ...
, who married Mathilde Townsend in 1910. They divorced in 1925 and he later married
Edith Stuyvesant Dresser (1873–1958), the widow of
George Washington Vanderbilt II (1862–1914).
In 1904, the Swiss-born American artist
Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947) painted Gerry's portrait, which still hangs in the
New York Yacht Club
The New York Yacht Club (NYYC) is a private social club and yacht club based in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1844 by nine prominent sportsmen. The members have contributed to the sport of yachting and yacht design. ...
.
Gerry died on February 18, 1927, about two weeks after breaking his hip in a fall, outliving his wife by seven years. He was entombed in the churchyard of
St. James Church in
Hyde Park, New York
Hyde Park is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States, bordering the Hudson River north of Poughkeepsie. Within the town are the hamlets of Hyde Park, East Park, Staatsburg, and Haviland. Hyde Park is known as the hometown of Fra ...
. The associated
Episcopal church is best known for its association with
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
, who served on the vestry and as senior warden, and tours of the cemetery continue to be offered.
At his death, Gerry was reputed to be worth $26 million, primarily in landholdings, making him one of the city's wealthiest men.
Residences
His family's New York mansion at 2 East 61st Street had long been a center of cultivated and fashionable life, even as it came to be surrounded by skyscrapers.
When he built it, he told architect
Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt (October 31, 1827 – July 31, 1895) was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of architecture of the United States. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 ...
specifically about needing to house his collection of 30,000 law books and cost a reported $3,000,000.
After his death, the family mansions in Manhattan were soon demolished, to make way for the
Pierre Hotel.
Gerry maintained a summer home named "Seaverge" on
Bellevue Avenue in
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, United States. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and nort ...
. His wife's estate in the
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province and subrange of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined a ...
was called "Aknusti", supposedly from an American Indian word meaning "expensive proposition."
References
External links
Finding aid to the Elbridge Thomas Gerry papers at Columbia University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gerry, Elbridge Thomas
1837 births
1927 deaths
Gerry family
Goelet family
Lawyers from New York City
Members of the New York Yacht Club
New York (state) Democrats
Columbia College (New York) alumni