Henry S. Gere: Journalist
In August 1862, Henry S. Gere placed his name on the Northampton enlistment roll for nine-month’s military service in the Civil War. At a meeting in town hall on August 24th, Henry S. Gere announced that if “a dozen or fifteen businessmen … like himself” came forward to serve, Northampton could avoid a draft.
At the time of his enlistment, Henry S. Gere was 34 years old, co-publisher of the Hampshire Gazette and Northampton Courier and Northampton’s most important organizer of the town’s politicized antislavery movement.
Born in the hamlet of Searsville next to Williamsburg, Henry Gere came to Northampton in the 1840s where his family had arranged an apprenticeship for him at the Hampshire Herald. An abolitionist newspaper, the Herald was financed by the reformer, John Payson Williston, and run by Abijah Thayer, a fiery abolitionist in his own right. It was at Thayer’s knee that Gere learned to loath slavery. It was also the start of a luminous career in journalism that would span the years 1845 to 1914: the Hampshire Herald: 2 years; the Northampton Courier: 10 years and the Hampshire Gazette: 56 years. When Gere wasn’t at his editor’s desk, he feverishly stumped for the Free Soil Party, served as County Treasurer and then headed the county organization of the Republican Party for decades after its founding in 1856.
The advent of the Civil War provided Gere the opportunity to contest slavery face-to-face. Once mustered into the 52nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, he religiously wrote a column for the Hampshire Gazette on his wartime experience. His “Letters from the 52d” signed “G.” provide rare and invaluable insight not only into his own passions but also the aspirations of the freed and enslaved people he met in Baton Rouge.
In August 1862, Henry S. Gere placed his name on the Northampton enlistment roll for nine-month’s military service in the Civil War. At a meeting in town hall on August 24th, Henry S. Gere announced that if “a dozen or fifteen businessmen … like himself” came forward to serve, Northampton could avoid a draft.
At the time of his enlistment, Henry S. Gere was 34 years old, co-publisher of the Hampshire Gazette and Northampton Courier and Northampton’s most important organizer of the town’s politicized antislavery movement.
Born in the hamlet of Searsville next to Williamsburg, Henry Gere came to Northampton in the 1840s where his family had arranged an apprenticeship for him at the Hampshire Herald. An abolitionist newspaper, the Herald was financed by the reformer, John Payson Williston, and run by Abijah Thayer, a fiery abolitionist in his own right. It was at Thayer’s knee that Gere learned to loath slavery. It was also the start of a luminous career in journalism that would span the years 1845 to 1914: the Hampshire Herald: 2 years; the Northampton Courier: 10 years and the Hampshire Gazette: 56 years. When Gere wasn’t at his editor’s desk, he feverishly stumped for the Free Soil Party, served as County Treasurer and then headed the county organization of the Republican Party for decades after its founding in 1856.
The advent of the Civil War provided Gere the opportunity to contest slavery face-to-face. Once mustered into the 52nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, he religiously wrote a column for the Hampshire Gazette on his wartime experience. His “Letters from the 52d” signed “G.” provide rare and invaluable insight not only into his own passions but also the aspirations of the freed and enslaved people he met in Baton Rouge.