Excerpt from Henry S. Nourse’s “History of the Town of Harvard Massachusetts 1732–1893,” written in 1894.

In the earlier elections for state officials, the first of which was that of September 4, 1780, no grave political questions were at issue. The contest among the voters was that of their personal opinions respecting the fitness of candidates. Harvard usually gave an almost unanimous vote for Governor John Hancock whenever his name was before the people for office.

When the Constitution of the United States was accepted by the state convention in Federal Street Church, February 6, 1788, it was by a vote of 187 in favor to 168 against it. Harvard’s delegate, Colonel Josiah Whitney, voted against it, as did 43 of the 50 delegates who represented the towns of Worcester county.

At the first election for presidential electors, December 18, 1788, when two candidates were to be selected by the district, the recorded vote of Harvard was 24 for Henry Bromfield, 17 for Levi Lincoln, 6 for Seth Washburn, 6 for John Fessenden, and 1 for Joseph Stone. In the list of the 10 electors actually chosen for Massachusetts, not one of Harvard’s candidates appears. Unguided by caucus or convention, or even printed ballots, the rural freemen gratified their preferences and threw away their votes.

At the election of November 2, 1792, when the state was divided into four electoral districts, and five electors were to be chosen in the district, which was composed of Berkshire, Hampshire, and Worcester counties, Henry Bromfield, Samuel Henshaw, Thompson I. Skinner, and William Shepherd received 15 votes each, Moses Gill had 9, and Samuel Baker 6. These ballots probably indicated the popularity of certain individuals, but had no political significance, for it must have been well understood that whoever the electors were, Washington was to be president. Before the close of Washington’s administration, the people began to range themselves into two parties—Federalist and Republican—under the leadership of Hamilton and Jefferson. After the third election, party feeling rose to a degree of heat and bitterness that has since been rarely equaled.

Though centrally situated in the hot-bed of Federalism, Harvard early became aggressively Republican. The intellectual leaders and social aristocrats, like the minister and Esquires Benjamin Kimball and Henry Bromfield, were earnest Federalists—Adams men, but the majority were generally of the Jeffersonians—the French party or Democracy, as their opponents derisively nicknamed them. Though Federalism ranked as the more “gentlemanly” politics, in election squabbles it was hard to tell which party was the most skilful in mud-throwing.

At the election in 1796, which gave the presidency to John Adams, the congressional and electoral districts in Massachusetts were identical and 14 in number. Harvard’s vote was 29 for Henry Bromfield, 26 for James Winthrop, 12 for Elbridge Gerry, and 9 for E. Breck; apparently more than two to one in favor of the Federal candidate; but in the second year of Adams’s administration the town gave instructions to her representative, Joseph Stone, a Jefferson Republican, requesting him to exert his influence in the legislature to procure a petition for the repeal of the alien and sedition laws passed by congress, and for the preservation of peace with France—although the insolent aggression of the French government made peace impossible except with national dishonor.

In 1800, the electors were chosen by the legislature; but the vote in Harvard for the representative to congress was 79 for Joseph B. Varnum and 12 for Timothy Bigelow; showing a great change in popular sentiment in favor of the administration. At the election which secured for Jefferson a second term of office—when even Federalist Massachusetts cast her electoral vote for him——133 ballots were cast in Harvard for the Republican electors, and 53 for the Federalists.

In 1808, the legislature a second time chose the presidential electors, but for representative to congress, Moses White had 127 votes in Harvard, while his competitor, William Stedman the Federalist, who won in the district, had but 64.

The embargo, which went into effect during the closing year of Jefferson’s administration, destroying as it did the chief source of New England’s prosperity, was stigmatized as sectional legislation, and party rancor passed the bounds of reason. The declaration of war against England brought even the conservative clergy to take part in political discussion. Thus in Harvard a town-meeting majority so fiercely and persistently resented the fast-day arguments of the Federalist minister, that he was forced to resign his pastorate.

The November election showed that the intemperate speech and action of the local radicals had not added to their numerical strength. The rallying cry of “free trade and sailors’ rights” was used with effect, but the war was deemed suicidal and awakened no enthusiasm even among its abettors. There were six districts, and district number two, composed of Worcester, Hampshire, Hampden, Franklin, and Berkshire counties, was entitled to six electors. Harvard gave 99 votes for the Federalist and 87 for the Administration ticket.

In the elections of 1820, which gave James Madison the presidency for a second term, although but one elector was to be chosen in each congressional district, three candidates were voted for in Harvard, receiving respectively 14, 30, and 40 votes. The ballot for congressional representative shows that the parties were nearly equally divided; and they remained thus for several years, at least so far as the state elections were concerned; but the nomination of “Old Hickory” in 1824 awakened a popular enthusiasm only before exceeded by that in the days of Thomas Jefferson’s candidacy. Both parties united in calling Levi Lincoln to the governor’s chair in 1825, and kept him there for nine years, but Harvard annually cast a large minority vote for the regular Jacksonian nominee.

With the national election of 1832 began new designations to the two great political parties; those adhering to Andrew Jackson being called Democrats, while the followers of Henry Clay styled themselves the National Republican party. A year or two later, the latter name was dropped, and the Whig party absorbed all the opponents of the administration. The Whigs boasted themselves the legitimate heirs of the patriots of Revolutionary days who bore that name, raised liberty-poles on the public squares, and denounced their political foes as Tories, and “loco-focos.” The diligent use of epithets seems to have swayed voters, for in 1836 Harrison had a few more supporters in Harvard than Van Buren.

With 1840, the Anti-Slavery party appeared, and it gradually won adherents until, in 1856, nearly two-thirds of Harvard’s ballots were given to the Free Soil candidate for the presidency, John C. Fremont. The American or “Know Nothing” party the same year had a heavy majority in the town at the state election.

Since that date, the Democrats have remained in the minority, except in the state elections of 1869 and 1875.

275 Years of a Town:  In June 1732, the town of Harvard incorporated within the colony, after nearly 100 years of settlement in the area and several years of petitions, objections, and re-petitions to the legislature. To celebrate this milestone, the Press is running extracts from Henry S. Nourse’s History of the Town of Harvard Massachusetts 1732–1893.