The Results are In!

This is Dominic Longo, research historian at the HIstoric Village of Allaire.

On November 2 we celebrated the Election of 1836 with our own Allaire Election and Women’s Suffrage demonstration, but the actual election of 1836 was a month long. Without the ability to quickly tabulate and report votes, elections stretched out over the course of weeks.

On December 7, 1836 Martin Van Buren, Jacksonian Democrat, was announced the winner of the presidency over future president William Henry Harrison and three other Whig Candidates, Hugh White, Daniel Webster, and William Person Mangum.

Van Buren, the vice president under Andrew Jackson, was chosen by “Old Hickory” as a hand picked successor to his presidency. Although unpopular with Southern Democrats for his northern New York roots, Van Buren was voted unanimously as the Democratic Candidate for the presidency during the 1835 Democratic National Convention. Martin Van Buren won the 8 electoral votes from the state of New Jersey by a margin of only 545 votes.

Locally in New Jersey, there were no Senate seats up for bid and there was no election for Governor, but the election for the House of Representatives saw wholesale change. All six incumbent members of the House of Representatives lost their reelection bids. The Democrats were ousted by six Whig representatives. All representatives from the state of New Jersey were “at large” candidates, meaning that there were no Congressional districts in the state of New Jersey like today. The most local candidate to the Howell Iron Works was Joseph Fitz Randolph, who was from Freehold and worked as a prosecuting attorney for Monmouth County. Joseph Fitz Randolph would serve three terms as a New Jersey Representative and later become a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Around the nation, the state legislature of New Hampshire appointed future president Franklin Pierce as Senator. (More than 75 years would pass before the 17th amendment was ratified which allowed the people to directly elect Senators as opposed to state appointment.) Millard Fillmore was also elected as a Congressional representative for the 32nd district in New York for the second time. Fillmore would become the Vice President under Zachary Taylor and became president upon the death of President Taylor. Also elected to the House of Representatives was John Wesley Crockett, son of David Crockett, who represented Tennessee’s 11th district.