James Thompson Gerry
(1797-1854)
BIRTH
1797
PLACE
DEATH
September 28, 1854
PLACE
FAMILY
FATHER
Elbridge Gerry
(1744-1814)
SISTER
Catharine Gerry
(1787-1850)
HOMES
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
RELIGION NOT DOCUMENTED
DENOMINATION NOT DOCUMENTED
MEMBERSHIPS
AWARDS
James Thompson Gerry (1797–1854), son of Elbridge Gerry and Ann Thompson, was a U.S. naval officer. He attended Phillips Academy and later commanded the sloop-of-war USS Albany in the Caribbean. The ship disappeared after leaving Aspinwall, Panama, for New York in September 1854, taking Gerry and all aboard with it. A portrait by Samuel Lovett Waldo preserves his likeness. The loss prompted searches and federal support for the families of Albany’s officers and crew.
EARLY LIFE
The exact date and place of James Thompson Gerry’s birth have not been established in the source used for this entry. The surviving biographical summary provides only limited evidence about childhood, schooling, and the daily circumstances of the household, so those details are not reconstructed here without documentation. What can be stated securely is that this person belonged to the interconnected family world from which HistoryGPS traces participants, relatives, and later descendants of the Revolutionary generation.
No distinct public profession or office for James Thompson Gerry is established by the source summary used for this entry. The surviving record is primarily genealogical and documents family identity rather than an independent public career. James Thompson Gerry died on Sep 28, 1854. Additional claims about employment, public service, or accomplishments have been omitted where the consulted source did not support them.
CAREER
DEATH
James Thompson Gerry was lost with the United States sloop-of-war Albany in the autumn of 1854. As the ship's commander, he disappeared with the entire company after its final departure from Aspinwall, now Colón, Panama, on a voyage toward New York. The Navy's official ship history dates that departure to September 29, while the existing record gives September 28 as his death date. A departure date is not a witnessed death: the ship was never heard from again, and the exact time, place, and immediate cause of the loss were not established. Searches failed to recover a surviving account. A storm or foundering may explain the disappearance, but a detailed scene of Gerry on the quarterdeck, a final order, or a precise sequence of the sinking cannot responsibly be supplied. The public aftermath included concern for the families of the missing officers and sailors. Gerry's final days are therefore known through the last recorded movements of Albany and the silence that followed. His death belongs to a loss at sea, with uncertainty about the final event retained rather than concealed behind an exact calendar day.
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
100948