[PhiPsiRuss]

Originally posted by DeltAlum
Thought he was the governor -- but it's been a long time since I learned about that.

He was a governor in Massachusetts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A632990
Gerrymander - In 1812 Governor Eldridge Gerry of Massachussets revised local Congressional boundaries so as to prevent his fellow Democrats from suffering an ignominous defeat. The painter Gilbert Stuart saw a map of the area in question while working at the Boston Centinel newspaer, declared it to resemble a salamander, and promptly augmented it with wings, claws and a beak to create a cartoon. His editor, Benjamin Russell, decided that Gerry-mander was a more appropriate name for it, and the word almost immediately became the popular term for any unfair adjustment of electoral boundaries, as the Gerry-mander cartoon (2497x5372 image here: http://memory.loc.gov/rbc/rbpe/rbpe0...0100/001dr.jpg) was subsequently copied extensively in political literature. Stuart's other, greater claim to fame is as the painter of George Washington's portrait as used on the one dollar bill, and Gerry emerged from the scandal relatively unscathed, going on to be James Madison's Vice-President.