MASSACHUSETTS

Image: The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

I. EARLY LIFE

Elbridge Gerry was born in 1744 at Marblehead, MA, the third of 12 children. His mother was the daughter of a Boston merchant; his father was a wealthy and politically active merchant-shipper who had once been a sea captain. Upon graduating from Harvard in 1762, Gerry joined his father and two brothers in the family business, exporting dried codfish to Barbados and Spain. He entered the colonial legislature (1772-74), where he came under the influence of Samuel Adams and took part in the Marblehead and Massachusetts Committees of Correspondence. When Parliament closed Boston Harbor in June 1774, Marblehead became a major port of entry for supplies donated by patriots throughout the colonies to relieve Bostonians, and Gerry helped transport the goods.

Between 1774 and 1776, Gerry attended the first and second provincial congresses. He served with Samuel Adams and John Hancock on the Council of Safety and raised troops and dealt with military logistics as the chairman of the Committee of Supply. On the night of April 18, 1775, Gerry attended a meeting of the Council of Safety at an inn in Menotomy (Arlington), between Cambridge and Lexington, and barely escaped the British troops marching on Lexington and Concord.

II. CONTINENTAL CONGRESS AND CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

In 1776, Gerry entered the Continental Congress, where his specialities were military and financial matters. In Congress--and throughout his career--his actions often appeared contradictory. For example, he advocated better pay and equipment, yet he vacillated on the issue of pensions. Although he disapproved of standing armies, he recommended long-term enlistments.

Until 1779, Gerry sat on and sometimes presided over the congressional board that regulated Continental finances. After a quarrel over the price schedule for suppliers, Gerry, himself a supplier, walked out of Congress. Although nominally a member, he did not reappear for three years. During the interim, he engaged in trade and served in the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature.

As a representative in Congress in the years 1783-85, Gerry numbered among those who had possessed talent as Revolutionary agitators and wartime leaders but who could not effectively cope with the painstaking task of stabilizing the national government. He was experienced and conscientious, but he made many enemies with his lack of humor, suspicious nature, and obsessive fear of political and military tyranny. After leaving Congress, he retired from business, married Ann Thompson, and took a seat in the state legislature.

Gerry was one of the most vocal delegates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He presided as chairman of the committee that produced the Great Compromise but disliked the compromise itself. He antagonized nearly everyone by his inconsistency and, according to a colleague, "objected to everything he did not propose."

At first an advocate of a strong central government, Gerry ultimately rejected and refused to sign the Constitution because it lacked a bill of rights and because he deemed it a threat to republicanism. He led the drive against ratification in Massachusetts and denounced the document as "full of vices." Among the vices he listed were inadequate representation of the people, dangerously ambiguous legislative powers, the blending of the executive and the legislative, and the danger of an oppressive judiciary. Gerry did see some merit in the Constitution, though, and believed that its flaws could be remedied with amendments.

III. GOVERNMENT OFFICES

After he announced his intention to support the Constitution, Gerry was elected to the First Congress in 1789 . There, to the chagrin of the Antifederalists, Gerry championed Federalist policies.

Gerry left Congress for the last time in 1793 and retired for four years. During this period he came to mistrust the Federalists, who were trying to nurture an alliance with Britain, and sided with the pro-French Democratic-Republicans. When the United States and France were on the brink of war in 1797, President John Adams appointed Gerry as the only non-Federalist member of a three-man commission charged with negotiating a reconciliation. During the ensuing XYZ affair (1797-98), Gerry tarnished his reputation. Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, led him to believe that his presence in France would prevent war, and Gerry lingered on long after the departure of the two other commissioners, John Marshall and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Finally, the embarrassed Adams recalled him, and Gerry met severe censure from the Federalists upon his return.

Gerry won the governorship of Massachusetts in 1810--after four defeats in 1800-1803. Near the end of his second term, the Democratic-Republicans passed a redistricting measure to ensure their domination of the state senate. In response, the Federalists heaped ridicule on Gerry and coined the pun "gerrymander" to describe the salamander-like shape of one of the redistricted areas.

Despite his advanced age, frail health, and neglected finances, Gerry served as James Madison's Vice President in 1813. In the fall of 1814, he collapsed on his way to the Senate and died. He left his wife, who was to live until 1849--the last surviving widow of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, as well as three sons and four daughters. Gerry is buried in Congressional Cemetery at Washington, DC.

I. EARLY LIFE

Gorham, an eldest child, was born in 1738 at Charlestown, MA, into an old Bay Colony family of modest means. His father operated a packet boat. With only a minimal education, Gorham was apprenticed to a merchant in New London, CT, when he was about 15 years old. He quit in 1759, returned to his hometown, and established a successful business. In 1763 he wed Rebecca Call, who was to bear nine children.

Gorham began his political career as a public notary but soon won election to the colonial legislature (1771-75). During the Revolution, he unswervingly backed the Whigs. He was a delegate to the provincial congress (1774-75), member of the Massachusetts Board of War (1778-81), delegate to the Constitutional Convention (1779-80), and representative in both the upper (1780) and lower (1781-87) houses of the legislature, including speaker of the latter in 1781, 1782, and 1785. Although he apparently had no formal legal training, he also served as a judge of the Middlesex County Court of Common Pleas (1785-96). During this same period, he sat on the Governor's Council (1788-89).

British troops ravaged much of Gorham's property during the war, though he managed to recoup most of his fortune.

II. CONTINENTAL CONGRESS AND CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Despite pressing business concerns and his state political and judicial activities, Gorham also served the nation. He was a member of the Continental Congress (1782-83 and 1785-87) and held the presidency from June 1786 until January 1787.

The next year, at age 49, Gorham attended the Constitutional Convention. A moderate nationalist, he attended all the sessions and played an influential role. He spoke often, acted as chairman of the Committee of the Whole, and sat on the Committee of Detail. As a delegate to the Massachusetts ratifying convention, he stood behind the Constitution.

III. GOVERNMENT OFFICES

Gorham did not serve in the new government he had helped to create. In 1788 he and Oliver Phelps of Windsor, CT, and possibly others, contracted to purchase from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts six million acres of unimproved land in western New York. The price was $1 million in devalued Massachusetts scrip. Gorham and Phelps quickly succeeded in clearing Indian title to 2,600,000 acres in the eastern section of the grant and sold much of it to settlers. Problems soon arose, however. Massachusetts scrip rose dramatically in value, enormously swelling the purchase price of the vast tract. By 1790 the two men were unable to meet their payments. Gorham became insolvent and fell from the heights of Boston society and political esteem.

Gorham died in 1796 at the age of 58 and is buried at the Phipps Street Cemetery in Charlestown, MA.

Image: The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

I. EARLY LIFE

King was born at Scarboro (Scarborough), MA (presently Maine), in 1755. He was the eldest son of a prosperous farmer-merchant. After receiving an elementary education at local schools, he attended Dummer Academy in South Byfield, MA, and in 1777 graduated from Harvard. He served briefly as a general's aide during the War for Independence. Choosing a legal career, he read for the law at Newburyport, MA, and entered practice there in 1780. In 1786 he married Mary Alsop, daughter of a rich New York City merchant.

King's knowledge, bearing, and oratorical gifts launched him on a political career. From 1783 to 1785 he was a member of the Massachusetts legislature.

II. CONTINENTAL CONGRESS AND CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

At the Continental Congress (1784-86), King gained a reputation as a brilliant speaker and an early opponent of slavery.

King also represented Massachusetts at the Constitutional Convention. Though 32 year-old King was one of the youngest of the delegates, he was also one of the convention's most capable orators. He came to the convention unconvinced that major changes should be made in the Articles of Confederation, but his views were completely transformed during the debates. With Madison, he became a leading figure in the nationalist caucus. He served with distinction on the Committee on Postponed Matters and the Committee of Style. King, who attended every session, took notes on the proceedings which have been valuable to historians.

III. GOVERNMENT OFFICES

About 1788, King abandoned his law practice, moved from the Bay State to Gotham, and entered the New York political forum. He was elected to the legislature (1789-90) and was picked as one of the state's first U.S. Senators. As political divisions grew in the new government, King expressed ardent sympathies for the Federalists. In Congress, he supported Hamilton's fiscal program and stood among the leading proponents of the unpopular Jay's Treaty (1794).

In 1791 King had become one of the directors of the First Bank of the United States. Reelected to the U.S. Senate in 1795, he served only a year before he was appointed Minister to Great Britain.

King's years in this post (1796-1803) were difficult ones in Anglo-American relations. The wars of the French Revolution endangered U.S. commerce because of maritime clashes between the French and the British. The British in particular violated American rights on the high seas, especially by the impressment of sailors. Although King was unable to bring about a change in this policy, he smoothed relations between the United States and Great Britain.

In 1803 King sailed back to the United States and to a career in politics. In 1804 and 1808, fellow-signer Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and he were the Federalist candidates for President and Vice President, respectively, but were decisively defeated. During the War of 1812, though, King was again elected to the U.S. Senate (1813-25) and ranked as a leading critic of the war. Only after the British attacked Washington in 1814 did he come to believe that the United States was fighting a defensive action and thus to lend his support to the war effort.

In 1816 the Federalists chose King as their candidate for the presidency, but James Monroe beat him handily. Still in the Senate, King led the opposition to the establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Four years later, he denounced the Missouri Compromise. He believed that the issue of slavery could not be compromised, but rather should be settled immediately with compensated emancipation and colonization.

Suffering from ill health, King retired from the Senate in 1825. President John Quincy Adams, however, persuaded him to accept another assignment as Minister to Great Britain. He arrived in England that same year, but soon fell ill and was forced to return home. In 1827, he died at the age of 72. Several offspring survived him. He was laid to rest near King Manor in the cemetery of Grace Episcopal Church, Jamaica, Long Island, NY.

Image: National Archives, Records of Exposition, Anniversary, and Memorial Commissions
(148-CP-156)

I. EARLY LIFE

Strong was born to Caleb and Phebe Strong on January 9, 1745, in Northampton, MA. He received his college education at Harvard, graduating with highest honors in 1764. Like so many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Strong chose to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1772, and his country practice prospered.

From 1774 through the duration of the Revolution, Strong was a member of Northampton's Committee of Safety. He was elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1776 and also held the post of county attorney for Hampshire County for 24 years. He was offered but declined a position on the state Supreme Court in 1783.

II. Constitutional Convention

At the Constitutional Convention, Strong favored a strong central government. He successfully moved that the House of Representatives should originate all money bills. Though he preferred a system that accorded the same rank and mode of election to both houses of Congress, he voted in favor of equal representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House. Strong missed the opportunity to sign the Constitution, as he was called home because of illness in his family. However, during the ratifying convention in Massachusetts, he took a leading role among the Federalists and campaigned strongly for ratification.

III. GOVERNMENT OFFICES

Massachusetts chose Strong as one of its first U.S. Senators in 1789. During the four years he served, he sat on numerous committees and participated in framing the Judiciary Act. Strong wholeheartedly supported the Washington administration. In 1793 he urged the government to send a mission to England and backed the resulting Jay's Treaty when it met heated opposition.

Strong, the Federalist candidate, defeated Elbridge Gerry to become Governor of Massachusetts in 1800. Despite the growing strength of the Democratic party in the state, Strong won reelection annually until 1807. He regained the governorship in 1812, once again over Gerry, and retained his post until he retired in 1816. During the War of 1812, Strong withstood pressure from the Secretary of War to order part of the Massachusetts militia into federal service. Strong opposed the war and approved the report of the Hartford Convention, a gathering of New England Federalists resentful of Jeffersonian policies.

Strong died on November 7, 1819, two years after the death of his wife. He was buried in the Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton. Four of his nine children survived him.