Among Massachusetts’s most notorious legacies is the “gerrymander,” which refers to intentionally manipulating electoral districts for political advantage. A controversy arose from state legislation that drew new voting districts in Worcester and Essex Counties, orchestrated by Samuel Dana, the President of the Massachusetts Senate, and signed into law by Governor Elbridge Gerry, pronounced “Gary” and not “Jerry.” The new lines favored the Democratic-Republicans in the First Party System. Federalists quickly opposed the law, led by Nathan Hale, editor of “The Weekly Messenger.” On March 6, 1812, his newspaper published the first remonstrance, featuring maps highlighting severe distortions in the newly drawn districts. Three days later, the “Boston Gazette” reprinted Hale’s maps with additional criticism of the law.
The term “gerrymander” originated, according to Samuel Batchelder’s account, at a dinner party in the home of Colonel Israel Thorndike, where Joseph Cogswell presented Hale’s map of Essex County. Guests noted that the shape resembled a strange creature. Artist Elkanah Tisdale drew features to turn the map into a grotesque winged beast. Poet and satirist Richard Alsop Sr. suggested the name “Gerry-mander,” blending “salamander” with the governor’s surname, and the name stuck.
Sources published years later attribute the first sketch to the portraitist Gilbert Stuart, credit the name’s invention to orator James Ogilvie or “Columbian Centinel” editor Benjamin Russell, and change the setting to an office. However, historian John Ward Dean, who published Batchelder’s account in 1892, argues it is the most reliable, as Batchelder was a contemporary of the events and a close acquaintance of the party guests.
The term became a political weapon in the Federalist press. On March 26, 1812, the “Boston Gazette” published the now-famous political cartoon of the “Gerry-mander,” etched by Tisdale. The woodcut, now in the Library of Congress, depicted the Essex district as a contorted, winged creature—a visual embodiment of political manipulation.
During the 1812 elections, Federalist newspapers used the Gerry-mander caricature to incite public outrage. Despite their efforts, the redistricting resulted in the Democratic-Republicans securing 29 seats in Congress, while the Federalists secured 11. Gerry lost reelection but would serve as Vice President under James Madison until he died in office in 1814. Federalists continued their outcry, cementing “gerrymander” in the American lexicon. The “Salem Gazette” on April 2, 1813, published the Gerrymander caricature turned on its back, urging citizens to “strangle it in its infancy.” A broadside from an unknown publisher, published sometime later in response to another redistricting effort, satirically likened the beast to mythical horrors, calling it a “Basilisk,” a “Griffin,” and a being of “infernal origin.” The “Columbian Centinel,” on April 7, declared its demise, printing a skeletal depiction alongside a mocking obituary, claiming the creature had “expired in the most agonizing struggles.”
Though the “Columbian Centinel” declared the death of the Gerrymander in 1813, the monster never died—it merely adapted. Today, gerrymandering remains a tool for securing a partisan advantage, refined through advanced data analysis. The creature that first crawled out of Massachusetts in 1812 continues to haunt American elections.
Feature photo credit from the Library of Congress
