| Birth: | Sep. 18, 1879
New York
New York County
New York, USA | | Death: | Oct. 31, 1957
Providence
Providence County
Rhode Island, USA | 
US Senator. He was born on a Thursday to Elbridge Thomas Gerry and Louise Matilda Livingston. He is the great-grandson of Elbridge Gerry, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of Massachusetts, and the 5th Vice President of the United States. Along with Robert, his brother, William Lyon Mackenzie King who would later become Prime Minister of Canada tutored him. After attending public schools he studied law at Harvard University and graduated in 1901. He was admitted to the Rhode Island bar in 1906. In 1910 he married wealthy Washington socialite Mathilda Townsend. Elected, in 1912, to the 63rd Congress, as a Democrat from Rhode Island's 2nd district. Was not reelected in 1914. However, in 1916 he was elected as a Senator from Rhode Island and served till 1929. He served as Democratic Whip from 1919 till 1929. He was defeated in his reelection bid in 1928 by Felix Herbert. In 1934 he defeated Felix Herbert and served until 1947 when he was not a candidate for reelection. In 1925 he married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser Vanderbilt, the widow of George Washington Vanderbilt II, owner of Biltmore House in Asheville NC. Was a staunch opponent of the New Deal and helped organize opposition to FDR's attempt to pack the Supreme Court in 1937 but being an internationalist he was in favor of the New Deal's foreign policy. After his political career he returned to his law practice in Providence RI where he died on a Thursday a few hours before his elder brother Robert who did not know of his brothers passing. (bio by: Matthew Fatale)
Family links:
Spouse:
Edith Stuyvesant Dresser Gerry (1873 - 1958)*
*Calculated relationship
Search Amazon for Peter Gerry | | | Burial:
Lake Delaware Cemetery
Bovina
Delaware County
New York, USA |
Maintained by: Find A Grave
Record added: Mar 19, 2000
Find A Grave Memorial# 8937 |
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