On this day the Gerrymander was born! Plus, my ancestral connection!
On this day, February 12th 1812, Governor Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814 signed a bill which created oddly-shaped voting districts accross the state. These new districts were soon discovered to overwhelmingly benefit the Democratic-Republican party in the upcoming election. The depiction to the right of Gerry's own district, by Benjamin Russel, became the popular representation of the controversial re-districting. While not known for sure, it is said that Gilbert Stuart, America's most famous painter at the time, declared the home distruct looked more like a salamander than a dragon to which a quick-witted worker at the Boston Gazette shot back "That's not a salamander it's a gerrymander!" The term stuck and soon became a part of our language to describe any deliberate political redistricting that benefits one party over another. Sure enough, with the re-districting in place the Democrat-Republicans won in a landslide over the Federalists. Oddly, this wasn't the end for Governor Gerry despite a controversy so big it became a new part of the English language! Governor Gerry talked his way out of it all only suffering a re-election defeat over the issue in 1811. Not letting a mere defeat get him down, Gerry continued to have a successful career which culminated as Vice President of the United States under James Madison until his untimely death in 1814.
My ancestor, William Gray (1750-1825) son of Abraham Gray the Deacon of First Church in Lynn, served as Lt. Governor under Gerry but was uninvolved (or at least never implicated) in the re-districting due to being entirely focused on the mediating the ill-effects of the Jeffersonian trade ban with Europe on Massachusett's maritime trade. This ban, and the subsequent War of 1812 would cost him 2/3 of his $3,000,000,000 net worth and most of his trading fleet which was the largest private fleet in the United States at the time. William was unmoved in his support for the ban despite the personal cost. His support made him very unpopular among the fellow merchants of Salem whom opposed it. In 1809 William was forced out of Salem and moved to Cambridge Massachusetts to start life anew where he had ten children whom all survived to adulthood and great success. Yup, ten.