The same fellow. There's a lot of material on him in the Biography of American Labor Leaders, ed., Gary Fink, and other sources.

Commerford was a member of the Mechanics' Mutual Protection in 1841, became a founder of the National Reform Association in 1844, and of the Brotherhood of the Union by 1850. Although he always called himself a Democrat, he never held a place on that ticket and ran for Congress, on the Equal Rights ticket in 1836, a National Reformer in 1846(?), and finally as a Republican in 1860. He was the first American on this side of the Atlantic that I know of who opened correspondence with Karl Marx, laying the foundations for the establishment of U.S,. cothinkers' groups.