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New Hampshire

NEW HAMPSHIRE WAS inhabited by Algonquian tribes before the arrival of the Europeans who first explored the region around 1600, and established the first settlement in 1623. In 1679, it became a Royal Province, and was then one of the 13 states that were involved in the American War of Independence, being the first state to declare its independence. Since independence, New Hampshire and its neighbor Vermont have been the only two states in the Union that have held gubernatorial elections every two years. New Hampshire has no term limit on the office of governor.

The first elected president of the state of New Hampshire, as the position was initially styled, was Meshech Weare, who had been elected to represent the town of Hampton Falls in the assembly and was three times elected speaker of the state House of Representatives. In 1776 when New Hampshire became the first American state to adopt a formal written constitution, Weare became head of the executive during the Revolutionary War, and in 1785 John Langdon took over from him. Langdon was to serve again 1788–89, and 1805–09. Beginning in 1786, the elections were for the office which was titled the president of the state of New Hampshire, but in 1791 this was amended to governor.

Early Party Affiliations

Until 1828, the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists competed in elections, with most victories being relatively narrow. The most popular politician during this period was Federalist John Taylor Gilman, a shipbuilder, who won five consecutive gubernatorial elections, but lost two subsequent elections. In 1812, the results of the gubernatorial elections were so close that the final choice was sent to the state legislature to declare the final result. William Plumer, longtime New Hampshire politician, was declared to have won the election. Plumer remained governor until 1819. In the following year he was the one member of the presidential election college to vote against James Monroe, the last of nine occasions he was a presidential elector.

After 1816, the Federalists had been too weak in the state to run a candidate in the gubernatorial elections. When Samuel Bell, the incumbent governor, decided to move to the U.S. Senate in 1822, part of the Democratic-Republican Party decided to endorse Samuel Dinsmoor from Keene as their candidate, with the Federalists throwing their support behind Levi Wood-bury, also Democratic-Republican, who won the election. In the 1832 election, Bell, still a member of the U.S. Senate, and Levi Woodbury, by then the secretary of the Navy, were able to get the state to strongly support Andrew Jackson.

All but one of the governors of New Hampshire were Democrats 1829–55, the exception being Anthony Colby, a Whig. In 1855, Ralph Metcalf of the Know-No thing Party was elected as governor in a four-way race against two Democratic Party candidates, and a Whig candidate. In the next election, held in the following year, the race was so close that once again the state house of representatives was asked to decide, and voted to re-elect Metcalf. In 1857, with tension over the issue of slavery, William Haile, a merchant from Hinsdale, and a member of the newly-formed Republican Party, was elected governor. Some historians have claimed that the Republican Party was founded in New Hampshire, dating it back to a meeting held in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1853.

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