Editing Elbridge Gerry (section)

==Colonial business and politics==
Gerry was from an early time a vocal opponent of [[Parliament of Great Britain|Parliamentary]] efforts to tax the colonies after the [[French and Indian War]] ended in 1763.  In 1770, he sat on a Marblehead committee that sought to enforce importation bans on taxed British goods. He frequently communicated with other Massachusetts opponents of British policy, including [[Samuel Adams]], [[John Adams]], [[Mercy Otis Warren]], and others.<ref name=Purcell46/>

In May 1772, he won election to the Great and General Court of the [[Province of Massachusetts Bay]], which served as the state's legislative assembly. He worked closely with Samuel Adams to advance colonial opposition to Parliamentary colonial policies.  He was responsible for establishing Marblehead's [[Committees of correspondence|committee of correspondence]], one of the first to be set up after that of [[Boston]].<ref>Austin, pp. 6–27</ref> However, an incident of mob action prompted him to resign from the committee the next year.  Gerry and other prominent Marbleheaders had [[Essex Hospital|established a hospital]] for performing [[Smallpox vaccine|smallpox inoculations]] on [[Children's Island|Cat Island]]; because the means of transmission of the disease were not known at the time, fears amongst the local population led to protests which escalated into violence that wrecked the hospital and threatened the proprietors' other properties.<ref>Gilje, pp. 44–45</ref>

Gerry reentered politics after the [[Boston Port Act]] closed that city's port in 1774, and Marblehead became an alternative port to which relief supplies from other colonies could be delivered.  As one of the town's leading merchants and [[Patriot (American Revolution)|Patriots]], Gerry played a major role in ensuring the storage and delivery of supplies from Marblehead to Boston, interrupting those activities only to care for his dying father.  He was elected as a representative to the [[First Continental Congress]] in September 1774, but declined, still grieving the loss of his father.<ref>Billias, pp. 42–44</ref>