Was there really a Communist presidential nominee or political party in the 1876 election?

Question

In David Leip's political atlas, it says that 'Communist' gained 32 votes in the 1876 presidential election. The name of the candidates and the state where these votes were counted doesn't appear. Of course 32 votes isn't many, but I'm surprised even the word was in use back then. Is this website kosher?

Answer 1

I suspect that may actually be correct. If memory serves, there was a utopian community movement around the time of transcendentalism in the United States after the Civil War where spiritual communities were constructed to be harbored from the intrusiveness of the rest of the world, from their perspectives.