On 11 February 1812, Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts signed himself into history by authorising a radical redrawing of electoral districts designed to win his party the next election.
By March the Weekly Messenger observed that the county of Essex had become two districts, one concave and the other convex, “as one of them fits into the other very much as the half of a small egg may be put into half the shell of a larger egg.”
Over coming weeks, it was observed that that the outer district looked like the amphibious salamander. The Boston Gazette drew the district as a fabulous monster, under the heading “Gerry-Mander”.
As late as 1988 President Reagan noted that “gerrymandering” came with a hard “g”. Whether the pedants can ever win that one, Gerry is the only signatory of the Declaration of Independence actually buried in Washington DC.