Gerry, Elbridge Hoffman

Life Span
to
Dickinson Connection
Class of 1861
    Full name
    Elbridge Hoffman Gerry
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Estimated
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Origins
    Free State
    No. of Spouses
    2
    No. of Children
    5
    Family
    James Gerry (father), Salome Hoffman (mother), Anna Mitchell Scarborough (first wife, 1868), Arabella Beck McAbee (second wife)
    Education
    Dickinson (Carlisle College)
    Other
    Other Education
    University of Maryland Medical School
    Occupation
    Politician
    Businessman
    Educator
    Doctor, Dentist or Nurse
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Church or Religious Denomination
    Methodist
    Political Parties
    Democratic
    Other Affiliations
    Masons
    Government
    Local government

    Elbridge Hoffman Gerry (Dickinson Chronicles)

    Scholarship
    Elbridge H. Gerry was born in York County, Pennsylvania in the borough of Shrewsbury on October 18, 1836 to James and Salome Hoffman Gerry.  His father was prominent Methodist and Democrat in the area and three years after his son was born served two term in the United States Congress.  Elbridge attended the local public school and the Shrewsbury Academy and then, in 1858, entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1861.  While at the College he was elected to the Belles Lettres Society and became a member of Sigma Chi.  He was graduated with his class and took up school teaching.  After three years, he followed his father's path to the University of Maryland Medical School and graduated in 1867.

    He joined the family practice in Shrewsbury under his father until the older Doctor Gerry's retirement in 1870 and then with his brother James, who also attended Dickinson, until 1888.  From then he ran the practice alone and built a lucrative and large network of patients in the county.  He was also very active in civic affairs and local politics.  He was like his father a Democrat and was a regular delegate to county and state party conventions and served in the borough council.  He also was a director of the Shrewsbury Savings Institution.  He continued family tradition in the Methodist Church, too, and was lay delegate and sunday school superintendent.

    He had married in 1868 Anna Mitchell Scarborough of Baltimore but she had passed away after three years of marriage.  He married again, to Arabella Beck McAbee of Shrewsbury and the couple had four sons and a daughter.  After long service to his home town, Elbridge Hoffman Gerry died in Shrewsbury in the early years of the new century, around 1903.
    John Osborne and James W. Gerencser, eds., “Elbridge Hoffman Gerry,” Dickinson Chronicles, http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/encyclo/g/ed_gerryEH.htm.
    How to Cite This Page: "Gerry, Elbridge Hoffman," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5723.