William Widnall

Before Bill Bradley, there was Harry C. Harper.

Widely known as "Hackensack Harry," Harper spent ten seasons as a major league baseball pitcher with the Washington Senators, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and Brooklyn Dodgers, compiling a lifetime record of 59-77. The southpaw started the sixth game of the 1921 World Series for the Yankees against the New York Giants.

After his baseball career ended, the 32-year-old Harper entered politics, winning election as the Bergen County Sheriff in 1927.

Harper became a candidate for State Senator in 1931, seeking the seat vacated by Republican Ralph Chandless. Chandless had been expelled for his role in a Lodi sewer scandal. Harper, who ran with the support of Bergen GOP leder Daniel Thomson, a Chandless rival, won 61% of the vote against John Zabriskie, who had the support of Chandless' political organization.

One of the most powerful New Jerseyans to ever serve in the U.S. House of Representatives was J. Parnell Thomas, a Bergen County Republican who was elected to Congress in 1936. When the GOP took control of the House after the 1946 elections, Thomas became the Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee -- where his investigation into the Hollywood motion picture industry made him well-known across the nation. Thomas was one of the architects of Hollywood's so-called "Black List."

Thomas was a World War I veteran and investment banker when he ran for Allendale Borough Council in 1924. He was Mayor from 1926 to 1930 and a State Assemblyman from 1935 to 1937. When eight-term Congressman Randolph Perkins died after the 1936 primary, Republicans picked Thomas to run for his Bergen County-based House seat.

The HUAC interviewed more than forty people from the movie industry and named nineteen as having "leftist" views. Ten others subpoenaed by Thomas' committee refused to answer questions. Known as the "Hollywood Ten," these individuals were eventually found to be in contempt of Congress and served time in a federal prison.

Ned J. Parsekian, a former State Senator from Bergen County, sought the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1969Former State Sen. Ned J. Parsekian, a Bergen County Democrat who ran for Governor in 1969, died on Monday in Sarasota, Florida, accoridng to his law partner, Melvin Solomon.  He was 86.

A graduate of New York University and Columbia Law School, and a World War II veteran, Parsekian began his political career serving in the administration of Gov. Robert Meyner.  He was Deputy Attorney General, Director of the state Division of Workmen's Compensation, and Director of the Division of Motor Vehicles.  He held the post on an acting basis for three years before the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed his nomination.

Parsekian was elected to the State Senate in 1965 and lost re-election in 1967.  He briefly entered the race to challenge GOP U.S. Sen. Clifford Case in 1966, but withdrew when Democrats decided to back Warren Wilentz, the Middlesex County Prosecutor, for the post.