Henry S. Gere

Henry S. Gere, Company C, 52nd Massachusetts Regiment

Henry S. Gere was born in Williamsburg April 30, 1828, the son of Edward and Arabella Williams Gere. He came to Northampton, March 5, 1845 to learn the printer's trade in the office of the Hampshire Herald. IN August 1847, when the Herald's editor stpeed down, Gere was asked to take charge of the paper despite being only 19 years of age and with little experience in the newspaper trade. After a year running the paper with Hervey J. Smith, they sold the paper to Rev. William Tyler, editor of the Northampton Courier. At this time, the nomination of John P. Hale, Senator from New Hampshire for President by the Free Soil Party accompanied a rise in anti-slavery sentiment in the country. The Courier had been a liberal whig paper but transitioned to a Free Soil platform, with Gere working for Mr. Tyler for a brief time before buying him out. After ten years running the Courier, the Courier united with the Gazette. Henry S. Gere continued to work for the Gazette for the next 57 years, totalling 67 combined years at city newspapers. 

In 1862 Mr. Gere enlisted as a private in Company C, 52nd Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, for service in the Civil War and served in Louisiana. While at Baton Rouge, before the attack on Fort Hudson, he was appointed Army Postmaster by General Grover and continued in that capacity until the expiration of his term of service. 

In addition to his lifetime of published work in city newspapers, Gere prepared and published in 1902 a book titled Reminiscences of Old Northampton, which remains a bedrock of local history research today. 

"Mr. Gere was married at Easthampton on August 22, 1849 to Miss Martha Clark, daughter of Simeon and Dorcas Clapp Clark. They lived together for fifty-six years and in Mr. Gere's own words their married life was one of prolonged sunshine and joy."

-from Gere's Daily Hampshire Gazette obituary, March 27, 1914.

In early April 1863, Northampton newspaper publisher Henry S. Gere wrote a letter from Baton Rouge for publication in the Hampshire Gazette.  Gere described for a white northern audience the scarred back of an enslaved man named Peter. 

Gere and Marshall S. Stearns of Northfield were serving in the Union army and met Peter who had fled slavery and arrived at the encampment where they were stationed. Shocked by what they saw, Gere and Stearns collaborated to produce a photograph utilizing a new photographic medium called the carte-de-visite. Gere sent the photograph to bookseller Sidney E. Bridgman of Northampton for public viewing.  Months later, a version of the image reached a national audience on the pages of Harper's Weekly magazine. Today, the photograph is considered the most iconic image of an enslaved American."

- from the Historic Northampton Exhibit Chaotic Freedom and the Scars of Slavery, 2018.