William Travers Jerome Jr. (1890-1952)
of New York City & Bennington, Vermont
He was born in New York City and graduated from Yale (1912) and Columbia Law School. In his law career, for a time, he was associated with his famously fearless father. After his marriage (1917) to Hope Colgate, he became a partner in the Wall Street office of James B. Colgate & Co, and at the time of his death he was the oldest living trustee of Colgate University. In 1932, he became Chairman of the National Council of Northern Baptist Laymen, working closely with John D. Rockefeller Jr. to bring better education to the black populace in the South. He served in the Navy in WWI, and in WWII, following his directorship of Bennington's war defense setup, he was one of the nation's three recipients of the Freedom Foundation Award for Civilian Defense Planning.
