Although Elbridge Gerry devoted most of his life to public service, he is remembered not for his accomplishments but for giving life to an ugly political creature that still bears his name.

While Governor of Massachusetts, he signed a bill that authorized the legislature to redraw the boundaries of voting districts to favor one party over another. When the borders were redrawn, a map of one of the new districts looked like a monster. Opponents named that monster after the governor, and the "gerrymander" was born.

Elbridge Gerry was born in 1744 into a North Shore shipping family. For a decade after graduating from Harvard, he worked with his father and two older brothers in their Marblehead codfish-shipping business. In 1772 he was elected to the General Court. For the rest of his long life, he was rarely out of office. Indeed, at his death in 1814, he was serving as James Madison's Vice President.

Gerry was a first-term representative in the General Court when he fell under the spell of the radical Samuel Adams. Converted to the cause of independence, he served on the local Committees of Correspondence and Safety, and as a delegate to both the Provincial Congress and later the Continental Congress. He was one of five Massachusetts men to sign the Declaration of Independence.