Gaspar Griswold Bacon Sr. served on the board of overseers of Harvard University, as the president of the Massachusetts Senate from 1929 to 1932 and as the 51st lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1933 to 1935.

The president of the Massachusetts Senate is the presiding officer. Unlike the United States Congress, in which the vice president of the United States is the ex officio president of the United States Senate, in Massachusetts, the president of the Senate is elected from and by the senators. The president, therefore, typically comes from the majority party, and the president is then the de facto leader of that party.