Meet Richard Stockton: The Imprisoned Founding Father

Our Independence Week project honoring each of the five signers of the New Jersey Declaration of Independence is nearly complete, Save Jerseyans. We’ve already covered Abraham Clark, John Hart, John Witherspoon, and Francis Hopkinson.

Last but not least, there is arguably New Jersey’s most famous (and controversial) founding father: Richard Stockton.

Unfortunately, most Americans who have heard of this remarkable man probably recognize his name. attached to a busy rest area on the New Jersey Turnpike (what a legacy!). Stockton was Back in the news in 2017 when the southern New Jersey university that bears his name removed his bust when leftists resurrected allegations that Stockton owned slaves. We’ll come back to that claim a little later.

Who was Richard Stockton?

He was actually a reluctant rebel, at least initially, who eventually gave his life to the cause of the American Revolution. Born in 1730, Stockton initially had no interest in politics, and even less in separation from Britain.

As relations between England and its North American colonies deteriorated, Stockton’s preferred remedy was to gain colonial representation in the British Parliament. The Stamp Act The wave of protests of the mid-1760s seems to have been the catalyst for his own revolutionary turn, but he was not yet an instigator compared with contemporaries such as John Adams or Patrick Henry. In 1774 he wrote to Lord Dartmouth (then Secretary of State for the Colonies) to express his support for “a plan of self-government for America, independent of Parliament, without renouncing allegiance to the Crown.”

He even visited Britain between 1766 and 1767 and addressed King George III who reportedly approved of America’s growing comments regarding the repeal of the Stamp Act.

Stockton remained aloof despite his changing political views. A lawyer, he did not enter government until his return from Britain; in 1768 he accepted an appointment to the New Jersey Governing Council. He later joined the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1774.

Events were moving quickly. Appointed to the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, Stockton signed the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776. He was the first of the five New Jerseyans in the delegation to sign. Stockton would pay dearly for this.

On November 30, 1776, Stockton was attacked by Loyalists after he returned to New Jersey to seek safety for his family, away from the expected path of the British army. His captors delivered him to the British at Perth Amboy, and Stockton’s long odyssey began. General Cornwallis occupied Stockton’s home in Princeton; his property was confiscated by the British army, as confirmed in a letter written by his son-in-law, Dr. Benjamin Rush, a co-signer of the Declaration of Independence. The Continental Congress then ordered George Washington, a close friend of Stockton, to check on Stockton’s status. Starving and freezing, Stockton was released shortly thereafter, on January 13, 1777.

More American Revolutionary War fighters died in British custody than on the battlefield. Invalided by his injuries and never fully recovering from his time in captivity, Stockton died in Princeton on February 28, 1781. A late-onset lip cancer further worsened his deteriorating health.

Stockton’s release from prison remains controversial. Some of his critics accuse him of having renounced his revolutionary allegiances in order to secure his own release. It is worth noting, however, that there is no tangible evidence to verify these allegations.

His life on the home front is currently a hot topic among some historians. Stockton University started a project to study his namesake’s connection to slavery and the consequences of his imprisonment:

“In Stockton’s case, slaves worked on his family home, an estate he called Morven, built after he inherited it near Princeton, New Jersey, in the 1750s. When he died in 1781, and despite claims during his lifetime, Stockton did not free the people he owned. They appear in his will, where he bequeathed them, along with his other “property,” to his wife Annis Stockton: “And whereas I have already mentioned to some of my negro slaves that, subject to their good conduct and fidelity, I would grant them their liberty at a convenient time, I must leave this to the discretion of my wife, on whose judgment and prudence I can fully trust.

The hypocrisy of slavery does not make Stockton unique among a generation of men who, including his friend Washington and Thomas Jefferson, set higher ideals than they could achieve in their lives. There is no doubt that the ideas of Stockton and his contemporaries have inspired and continue to inspire freedom seekers throughout the world, and the “more perfect union” to which our country continues to aspire would not be possible without the sacrifices of Richard Stockton and the other signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Stockton is buried at the Stony Brook Meeting House in Princeton. In 1888, New Jersey submitted a marble statue of Richard Stockton to the famous National Statuary Hall collection, on display in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.