Elbridge T. Gerry

Elbridge T. Gerry was a 19th-century New York Sandy Hook pilot boat built in 1888 at the Robinson & Waterhouse shipyard in City Island, Bronx. She was named in honor of Elbridge Thomas Gerry, a commodore of the New York Yacht Club. She served as a pilot boat from 1888 to 1896, when she was sold for offshore yachting cruises. Her name was changed to Kwasind, after the strongman in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. Construction and service Elbridge T. Gerry was launched on August 24, 1888, from the shipyard of Robinson & Waterhouse, City Island, Bronx. The launch was witnessed many invited quests. She was owned by pilots Captain B. J. Guiness, Hiram Treat, John Reardon, Edward Earl, Charles Foster and William Hurrall. She was christened by Amelia Guinness, the captain’s daughter. She was named in honor of Elbridge Thomas Gerry, a commodore of the New York Yacht Club. The Gerry became a pilot boat of the Sandy Hook pilot fleet. She took the place of the pilot boat Ezra Nye, which on March 12, 1888, drifted and went ashore near the southern end of the Manhattan Beach Railroad pier in the Great Blizzard of 1888. Her dimensions were 80 ft. in length; 21.8 ft. breadth of beam and carried 25-tons of ballast and 62-tons. Her foremast was 70-ft and her mainmast 71-ft high. She cost $13,000. On October 15, 1893, the pilot boat Elbridge T. Gerry, dragged her anchors and started to drift ashore off Staten Island. She was rescued by a tugboat and brought into port.