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Election of Phil Hoff as governor in 1962

"One hundred years of bondage - broken," shouted Philip Henderson Hoff on election night 1962 as a deliriously happy crowd in Winooski lifted him on their shoulders. Hoff had broken a century of Republican rule, ousting incumbent Gov. F. Ray Keyser Jr.

So many factors combined to make the win possible that it is impossible to find a single element to credit. Hoff was handsome, young and energetic; he was viewed in the mold of then-President John F. Kennedy, and, unlike many previous Democratic standard-bearers, he was not Catholic, long considered a handicap in such a Protestant state. But most powerful was Hoff's simple theme that a century was too long for one party to rule; it was time for a change.

The election of Stephen Royce as governor in 1854 as a Whig-Republican and his re-election in 1855 as a Republican marked the beginning of a century of unbroken rule by the GOP.

Some years in that century found Vermont nearly alone in its support of Republicans. In 1912 only Vermont and Utah supported the presidential bid of William Howard Taft; in 1936 Vermont and Maine were the only two states to vote against Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The bond between Vermont and the Republican Party was formed out of a dislike for slavery and a strong belief in the sanctity of the union of the states. Vermonters stood firmly behind the party of Abraham Lincoln, and over the years that commitment, cemented by the Civil War, was strengthened by the belief that Republican philosophy meshed well with small-town, rural life.

Beginning with the gubernatorial campaign of Robert Larrow in 1952, however, the Democrats made serious efforts to elect their own candidates. In 1958 William Meyer became the first Democratic congressman from Vermont; that year's gubernatorial contest was so close it required a recount.

Hoff served as governor for six hyperactive years. It seemed as if no aspect of Vermont life was untouched. Yet with the hindsight of historical perspective, what stands out most from those dramatic years is no single accomplishment, no one concrete change. What burns brightest was the spirit.

"We were proceeding on the basis that really there was nothing we couldn't do," recalled Hoff. "That we could get rid of poverty, that we could move the state along, that we could provide a prosperous and enjoyable life for every citizen. "It was a very positive time."