This is the fourth in a series about Commodore Robert F. Stockton, the Founder of Sea Girt.
Robert Field Stockton was born in 1795. He would grow up to be a naval hero, US Senator, and the richest man in New Jersey. His summer home at the Jersey Shore established an estate he called Sea Girt. To better understand his life I have dug into his family history.
Just as his grandfather Richard Stockton was a Revolutionary hero, his grandmother, Annis Boudinot Stockton enjoyed her own fame. She was the only one of the larger-than-life ancestors of Robert’s he would meet.
The Boudinots were French Huguenots (Calvinist Protestants), who fled France in the 1860s after Louis XIV rescinded the Edict of Nantes, which had given non-Catholic Christians freedom of worship. Emigrating from England, Annis’s father apprenticed as a silversmith in Antigua before they moved to Philadelphia where Annis was born. He opened a silver shop near Benjamin Franklin’s academy and later bought into a copper mine near New Brunswick. When he purchased a tavern in Princeton, Annis came in contact with the Stocktons whose family had founded the town.
Writing poetry from an early age, her talent was recognized by Ester Burr, wife of the second president of Princeton College, and mother of the 3rd Vice President, who would famously shoot Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804.
Esther wrote about Annis in a letter to Sarah Prince, on December 10, 1756:
“But I must tell you what for neighbours I have—the Nichest is a young Lady that lately moved from Brunsweck, a pretty discreet well behaved girl. She has good sense and can talk very handsomely on almost any subject, I hope a good Girl two—I will send you some peices of poetry of her own composing that in my opinion shew some genious that way that if properly cultivated might be able to make no mean figure.” - Journal of Esther Edwards Burr
Her husband Richard Stockton was one of the most eminent attorneys in the Jerseys and the couple were frequent and generous hosts at Morven, their mansion across the street from the college. The tragedy of the raid on the home during the British occupation of New Jersey destroyed a number of her writings. She was fortunate enough to secure and bury the secret papers of the Whig Society. She saved members from arrest and raids on their own homes. After the war, Annis was made the first female member in honor of her bravery.
Some of her poems and letters survived. Writing circles were a popular way for unpublished writers to share their works with other interested parties. They would get constructive feedback, and cheap distribution of their manuscritps. Annis had several of her works published in newspapers and pamphlets, and was one of the first women published in the United States.
Her charm as a hostess, and her elegant poetry made Morven an important social stop both before the war and after Richard died in 1781. Many of her poems from this era are odes to the Continental Victories. Several of Annis’ poems had made their way to General Washington. Her brother Elias was President of the Continental Congress near the end of the war, and for a time he moved their meetings from Philadelphia to Nassau Hall in Princeton, when unpaid soldiers threatened violence in Philadelphia.
Perhaps the most moving poem she wrote was for her husband’s eulogy. Part of it is here:
“Why does the sun in usual splendor rise?
To pain, with hated light, my aching eyes?
Let sable clouds inshroud his shining face,
And murmuring winds re-echo my distress,
Be nature’s beauty with sad glooms overspread,
Mourn my Lucius number’d with the dead.”
She entertained Martha and George at Morven on multiple occasions, and she corresponded with him. She comes across as a strong admirer of the General, She attended his addresses and wrote to him afterward. George’s replies usually were grateful but apologetic and he recognized that she was the more powerful force with the pen.
“I find myself extremely flattered by the strain of sentiment in your Sisters composition — But request it as a favor of you to present my best respects to her, andassure her, that however, I may feel inferior to the praize, she must suffer me to admire & preserve it as a mark of her genius tho’ not of my merits.”
Their playful banter continued. Washington was elected President in 1789 and as he and a parade of veterans rode from Mount Vernon to the new capital in New York City, the 1776 victory at Trenton was celebrated with a ceremonial archway. As Washington rode beneath it, the assembled women broke into song. Annis was there with the girls singing.
James Sharples Sr. 1797. The Grandmother Robert F. Stockton would remember Courtesy, Independence National Historical Park
She wrote President Washington,
“One thought of Jersey Enters in your mind
Forget not her: on Morven’s humble glade
Who feels for you a friendship most refin’d.
When her eldest son Richard married, she turned the keys of Morven to him. Richard graduated from Princeton and was made head of the State Bar Association. She lived there as the Dutchess while Richard “The Duke” and Mary Field had the first five of their nine children. Sometime between the birth of Robert Field Stockton, the fifth child, in 1895 and 1898 she had a falling out with her daughter-in-law, and she went to live with her daughters, first Julia in Philadelphia. Her youngest, Abigail had married Mary Field’s brother Robert who inherited White Hill, a mansion in Fieldsboro, Burlington NJ, and she settled in with them until her death in 1801.
The bulk of Annis’s poems were considered lost to history when in 1985, an descendant, Mrs. G.H. Gaines revealed a trove of over 150 of Annis poems, in a manuscript entitled “Only for the Eye of a Friend”. Dr. Carla Mulford at UPenn edited and published the poems in the 1990s. They lend considerably to the history of the period, women’s roles, and poetry of the era. Her works are compared to Anne Bradstreet and Emily Dickinson in favorable light.
Robert Field Stockton was just six years old when his highly respected grandmother died. He did inherit his grandmother’s infatuation with military heroes. Young Robert Stockton’s boyhood hero will be the subject of our next chapter.
Cover Photo Courtesy Princeton University Art Museum
Read more:
https://allthingsliberty.com/2022/07/annis-boudinot-stockton-the-poet-and-the-general/#google_vignette
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/annis-boudinot-stockton/