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Elbridge Thomas Gerry

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Elbridge Thomas Gerry

Elbridge Thomas Gerry (December 25, 1837 – February 18, 1927) was an American lawyer and reformer. He was the Commodore of the New York Yacht Club from 1886 to 1892. His paternal grandfather was U.S. Vice President Elbridge Gerry.

Gerry was born on December 25, 1837, In Charlestown, Rhode Island, the son of Thomas Russell Gerry, who was active in the Sons of the American Revolution, 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, Massachusetts Governor and U.S. Vice President Elbridge Gerry. His cousins included Elbridge Gerry, who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine, 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.

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.

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, 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.

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