TDIH: Elbridge Gerry, Signer of the Declaration

“If every Man here was a Gerry, the Liberties of America would be safe . . . ."

On this day in 1744, a signer of the Declaration of Independence is born. Elbridge Gerry was nothing if not a determined Patriot. “If every Man here was a Gerry,” John Adams once wrote, “the Liberties of America would be safe against the Gates of Earth and Hell.”

Gerry was a Harvard graduate working as a merchant in his family’s business when he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature in 1773, then to a provincial congress in 1774.

There would be no turning back for Gerry! After all, this was the same man who'd written a master’s dissertation at Harvard, arguing for the colonists to resist the Stamp Act.

“The fiery little Marbleheader who stuttered when speaking became one of his colony’s leading revolutionaries,” historian Dennis Fradin writes, “among other things helping to gather military supplies and distribute them to Massachusetts minutemen.”

Indeed, when the British began their march toward Lexington and Concord in April 1775, Gerry was among those seeking to avoid capture by the British. (He did avoid capture, but only because he escaped to a cornfield in his pajamas.)

In the weeks that followed, Gerry was charged with obtaining gunpowder and supplies for the militia then just outside Boston. From all accounts, he was diligent in his task and even used some of his own money to make sure the militia had what it needed.

Nevertheless, Gerry considered his actions the following year to be the “crowning achievement” of his life: He was a member of the Continental Congress that voted on independence, and he was among those who risked their lives by signing the Declaration later that summer.

Naturally, Gerry’s service didn’t end there. After the war, he served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He was an active member of that convention, but he was disappointed in the outcome. He ultimately refused to sign the Constitution when it was proposed.

He feared the Senate would be too powerful, he distrusted standing armies, and he thought a Bill of Rights was needed.

Ever the Patriot, he vowed to support his country’s new government when it was established, despite his earlier opposition to the Constitution. He even served in the first two Congresses as a representative from Massachusetts, declaring that “the federal constitution having become the supreme law of the land, he conceived the salvation of the country depended on its being carried into effect.”

In later years, he left his mark on the country in an unexpected way. He was then serving as Governor of Massachusetts, and he signed off on a redistricting plan that favored the Democratic-Republican Party. “The shape of one new district—in Gerry’s home county of Essex—resembled a fantastic dragon-like monster,” a Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities website explains.

Various stories are told about what happened next, but possibly a drawing was made of that contorted district at a dinner party. One dinner guest was a noted illustrator. He added a head, wings, and claws to the district, and dinner guests noted that it looked like a salamander. “Better say a Gerry-mander!” retorted another.

The Boston Gazette soon ran a political cartoon making fun of “The Gerry-mander.” After all his years of service, Gerry surely did not expect to be remembered for that—but then he was.

Gerry was later elected Vice President, but he died during his term in office. The headstone placed on his grave was etched with the words he lived by: “It is the duty of every man, though he may have but one day to live, to devote that day to the good of his country.”

Words to live by today, too, don’t you think?

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