Selectmen Support Elbridge Gerry Stamp

A local historian's effort to have the US Postal Service create an Elbridge Gerry postage stamp in time for the 200th anniversary of his death has garnered the full support of the town's Board of Selectmen.

Local historian Don Doliber brought his idea before the board at their meeting at Wednesday night in the hopes of raising public awareness about his cause.

Before laying out his plans, Doliber presented board members with a fact sheet about Gerry, who signed the Declaration of Independence, served as Vice President of the United States under James Madison and is one of Marblehead's most famous former residents.

"At no point has the town officially recognized (Elbridge Gerry) beyond our town histories and I know the postal service is asking for ideas," Doliber said. "So I thought for 2014, which is the 200th anniversary of his death, that it would be an appropriate time to issue a stamp."

At the bottom of the sheet was the address for the US Postal Service, which Doliber says receives some 30,000 stamp requests a year.

"He was a patriot, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, he went to the Constitutional Convention and refused to sign it because it did not carry a Bill of Rights," Doliber said. "I find him to be a very interesting character."

Doliber's said he hopes to help guide the Gerry stamp application to the top of the pile by getting a petition signed by employees of Regis College's Spellman Museum of Stamps and Postal History.

"I will get people at the (Spellman Museum) to sign the petition and get people in different town organizations to support this," Doliber said, adding, "it's a long shot but we have to start somewhere and since we want this in 2014, now is the time to begin. We’re right at the point where it has to be done."

After the end of Doliber's presentation, the Selectmen unanimously approved a motion to send a letter to the US Postal Service in support of his plan.