Delete comment from: Boston 1775
I’ve read the Gilbert Stuart story, but I think it's an example of celebrity attracting myth. It comes via Joseph T. Buckingham, who said the printer Russell coined the term "gerry-mander.”
Samuel Batchelder (1784-1879) of Cambridge wrote that the picture was made by Elkanah Tisdale, who's indeed established as an artist and engraver in Boston at the time. He said the poet Richard Alsop came up with “gerry-mander.”
Another tradition, published by James S. Loring and attributed by him ultimately to Benjamin Russell, says Tisdale did the drawing after Washington Alston and James Oglivie collaborated on the idea and the word.
Since the original point was that the long, curving district looked like a salamander, adding the wings strikes me as cheating. It gives away the Federalist game. The point wasn't so much that the district looked like a salamander as that a few added details and a label can associate the district map with something demonic.
Also not noted in this article is the claim by Gerry’s son-in-law and biographer James T. Austin that he opposed the districting but felt that as governor he had to defer to the legislature on all laws except those he felt were unconstitutional. Washington had a similar attitude early on, so perhaps that's true. We'd have to look at all of Gov. Gerry's vetoes.
Jul 19, 2019, 5:45:39 AM