Mapping Early American Elections

17th Congress: Massachusetts 1820

This page includes an interactive map. A text version of the same election data is available in the table below the map.

Massachusetts elected eight Federalists and five Democratic-Republicans to the Seventeenth Congress.

Massachusetts used a district system for electing members to Congress. Massachusetts lost seven of its seats in the House of Representatives to Maine, which became its own state on March 15, 1820.

Congressional election results, 17th Congress: Massachusetts 1820
District Candidate Party Vote Percentage Elected
1 Benjamin Gorham Federalist 2,266 57.9% ✓
1 Samuel A. Wells Democratic-Republican 1,572 40.2%
2 Gideon Barstow Democratic-Republican 1,345 53.9% ✓
2 Timothy Pickering Federalist 1,116 44.7%
3 Jeremiah Nelson Federalist 610 85.7% ✓
3 Amos Spalding Democratic-Republican 90 12.6%
4 Timothy Fuller Democratic-Republican 1,138 58.2% ✓
4 John Hart Democratic-Republican 409 20.9%
4 Samuel P.P. Fay Federalist 347 17.8%
5 Samuel Lathrop Federalist 1,115 73.7% ✓
5 Thomas Shepherd Democratic-Republican 250 16.5%
5 Other candidates 148 9.7%
6 Samuel C. Allen Federalist 1,030 92.4% ✓
6 Other candidates 85 7.7%
7 Henry W. Dwight Federalist 1,436 51.4% ✓
7 William P. Walker Democratic-Republican 1,226 43.9%
8 Aaron Hobart Democratic-Republican 1,237 52.8% ✓
8 William Bayliss Federalist 1,037 44.3%
9 John Reed Federalist 751 65.9% ✓
9 Walter Folger, Jr. Democratic-Republican 261 22.9%
9 Other candidates 127 11.2%
10 Lewis Bigelow Federalist 1,146 51.6% ✓
10 Edmund Cushing Democratic-Republican 579 26.1%
10 Jonas Kendall Federalist 490 22.1%
11 Jonathan Russell Democratic-Republican 1,386 52.9% ✓
11 Benjamin Adams Federalist 1,122 42.9%
12 Francis Bayliss Federalist 1,514 52.1% ✓
12 Marcus Morton Democratic-Republican 1,371 47.2%
13 William Eustis Democratic-Republican 1,002 65% ✓
13 James Richardson Federalist 474 30.7%

In most cases, only candidates who received more than 5 percent of the vote in a district are reported. Other candidates are reported as a group, but only if they in aggregate received more than 5 percent of the vote. In addition, percentages for each district may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding. The term Dissenting Republican includes various breakaway factions of the Democratic-Republican party.

New Nation Votes Data

Legend

Map legend: colors indicate party affiliation — Federalist, Democratic-Republican, or Other/unknown; darker shading indicates a larger vote margin (up to 40%, 60%, 80%, or 100%); marker shapes distinguish counties, congressional districts, major cities or towns, and areas with no data available.

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Citation

“17th Congress: Massachusetts 1820,” Mapping Early American Elections, https://earlyamericanelections.org/maps/meae.congressional.congress17.ma.county.html