The New Britain Herald leads with the settlement of Commodore Elbridge T. Gerry's massive Manhattan real estate fortune—a multimillion-dollar estate divided equally among his four children with nothing left to charity. The philanthropist, who founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1874 and donated approximately $1,000,000 to that cause alone, instead trusted his heirs would continue the family tradition of charitable giving during their lifetimes. Notably, the will contains an unusual clause protecting his daughters' fortunes from their husbands' control—the daughters can manage and dispose of their shares as if unmarried, a legal maneuver likely designed to protect one daughter married to an Englishman. The estate includes the famous Gerry law library of 80,000 volumes housed at Fifth Avenue and 61st Street, prime Manhattan real estate including the Y.J. Sloane Building site, and the steam yacht Electra, once flagship of the New York Yacht Club.

This story epitomizes the Roaring Twenties—a moment when enormous inherited wealth coexisted with Progressive-era philanthropy, and when women's property rights were still contested enough to require explicit legal protection from marital control. The Gerry estate reflects both the era's staggering real estate fortunes concentrated in a few Manhattan families and the period's anxiety about protecting women's independence. The Supreme Court cases mentioned on the same page—striking down Louisiana segregation laws and handling the Earl Carroll 'bathtub party' perjury conviction—show a nation wrestling with Prohibition's enforcement, racial segregation, and moral boundaries even as the wealthy accumulated vast holdings.

• The estate includes 64 tracts of Manhattan realty held in Commodore Gerry's own name, plus 32 more managed by Gerry Estates Inc.—this single family essentially owned significant chunks of midtown Manhattan including the Stern Brothers building site on Sixth Avenue and the Rialto Theater site on Union Square.
• Mrs. Louisa M. Gerry, the widow who received the estate in life trust, had already died on March 26, 1920—seven years before probate court saw the will. The children were receiving income from the properties all those years, waiting for legal proceedings to formalize their inheritance.
• One daughter, Mrs. Francis S. E. Drury, married 'an alien'—specifically the son of Archdeacon Drury, former chaplain of the English House of Commons. The will's protective clause preventing her husband from controlling her $5,000,000 inheritance was apparently a direct response to this international marriage.
• The will was executed March 5, 1913—14 years before Commodore Gerry's death in February 1927. The law library alone, with 80,000 volumes, was described as 'one of the finest collections in America' and housed an entire mansion floor at Fifth and 61st.
• Senator Peter Goelet Gerry, one of the heirs, received the famous Gerry law library as his specific bequest—merging legal scholarship with dynastic wealth in a way only the wealthiest families could manage.

• The Gerry mansion at Fifth Avenue and 61st Street—where the 80,000-volume law library was housed—sat directly on what would become one of Manhattan's most expensive blocks. Today that corner is in the heart of Midtown, worth billions.
• The Supreme Court's decision on the same page striking down Louisiana segregation laws (Harmon v. realty board cases) was part of a gradual legal framework that would, decades later, contribute to civil rights jurisprudence—though enforcement remained virtually nonexistent in 1927.
• Earl Carroll's conviction for perjury over his 'bathtub party' with showgirl Joyce Halley foreshadowed the celebrity-legal scandals of the celebrity age. He was convicted of lying about the party itself, not the alleged Prohibition violations—showing how absurd enforcement had become.
• The Chicago gangland killings reported (Alfonzo Fiori and others) represented the tail end of the Genna liquor organization's power. By 1927, Prohibition's organized crime ecosystem was shifting—this peace pact mentioned in the story was fragile and wouldn't last much longer.
• A 20-month-old baby, Justine Braley, was revived after being pronounced dead using artificial respiration techniques that were still novel in 1927. Modern resuscitation science was literally being tested and refined on Chicago's sickest children in real time.