From Historic Houses of New Jersey by W. Jay Mills, 1902
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
IN the main street of Princeton,
formerly Prince Town, hidden
somewhat by a Georgian garden
and a row of catalpa-trees, is the
well-preserved mansion of the
Stockton family. Perhaps the
greatest claim this house of many
stories has on history is the fact that it was the shelter of Richard Stockton IV., known
as " the Signer," and his charming, poetical wife, Anice
Boudinot, the friend of Washington and the sister of
the Hon. Elias Boudinot, of Elizabethtown and Philadelphia. Generations upon generations of college boys
nurtured in Princeton's classic shades have learned to
love the time-worn, venerable building, and almost every
student of the university to-day knows its history.
Sweet "Emilia" and gallant "Lucius" – as the Stocktons signed themselves in the romantic fashion of the
times in their faded but love-breathing epistles – lived a
married life that was the prettiest of pastorals, as
Marian Harland expresses it ; and looked at to-day
through the long vista of years, they appear like two
brightly colored and charming figures on a piece of old
tapestry. Mrs. Stockton, being a poetess, was perhaps the
most romantic of the pair, and her effusions still in
existence teem with eighteenth-century sentimentality.
One of her first recorded acts on her arrival at her husband's estate as a bride was the changing of the mansion's name from Constitution Hill to Morven, after one
of the Poet Ossian's heroes. When at John Covenhoven's house, near Freehold, at the beginning of the
war, she is said to have given voice to the remark, "that
she would not weep though her whole library was destroyed, if her dear Young's I Night Thoughts' was
saved intact." An amusing bit of Freehold gossip in
connection with that visit is the tale that John Covenhoven's wife was not overpleased with her fair visitor,
whose airs and graces exhibited before her John acted
somewhat like a red flag waved before one of the most
unruly of animals.
Princeton in the year 1776 was a very different place
from the sequestered little hamlet to which Mr. President
Burr had taken his seventy students from Newark to establish a new home for the college, where they would
be safely away from "promiscuous converse with the
world, the theatre of folly and dissipation." With its
churches and fine residences and its wealthy inhabitants,
including the Breezes, Stocktons, Randolphs, Bainbridges, Alexanders, Greenes, and many others, it was in
a flourishing condition. As it was midway between
New York and Philadelphia on the post-road, it was a
usual stopping-place for travellers. The old Princeton Tavern and Withington's Inn at Kingston were always
favorite resorts for the college boys and loitering-places
during recesses. As a Princeton poet wrote:
Many a lazy, longing look is cast
To watch the weary post-boy travelling through
On horse's rump, his budget buckled fast;
With letters safe in leathern prison bent,
And wet from press, full many a packet sent.
At the sound of the horn, the signal of the near
approach of a stage-coach, many a student smoothed
his ruffles or fixed his cap and gown. Gallants were
more gallant in those days, and maids more maidenly;
old gentlemen and ladies used to sigh, but it is safe to
say that the demure Quaker misses and fair Jersey belles
enjoyed their few minutes' respite at Princeton, with
the views of admiring college students, as much as
modern belles enjoy their visits there to-day.
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On the tidings of the approach of Cornwallis's army
in 1776, the village of Princeton was thrown into a
panic. Mrs. Stockton, at Morven, hastily buried her
silver in her garden, hid in a tree-trunk important
papers taken from Whig Hall, and started with her
children and slaves for Freehold. She, like many
another sad resident, had to leave her home and treasure
almost entirely at the mercy of the British. Over at
Nassau Hall, which came so near being Belcher Hall,
the inmates cleared their desks and packed trunks and
boxes to be in readiness to leave a loved alma mater.
Joseph Clark, a Princeton student of the time, has given
us a picture of the scene there in his unpublished journal.
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The trustees of the College of New Jersey wanted to name the
college building at Princeton Belcher Hall, in honor of Governor Belcher.
But this good servant of his king declined the honor, asking that it be
named Nassau Hall, to the immortal memory of the glorious King
William III., who was a branch of the illustrious house of Nassau.
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He writes:
On the 29th of November, 1776, New Jersey College, long the
peaceful seat of science and haunt of the muses, was visited with the
melancholy tidings of the approach of the enemy. This alarmed our
fears and gave us reason to believe we must soon bid adieu to our peaceful Departments and break up, in the midst of our delightful studies, nor
were we long held in suspense our worthy President deeply afflicted at
this so solemn scene entered the Hall where the students were collected
and in a very affecting manner informed us of the improbability of con-
tinuing there longer in peace, & after giving us several suitable instructions
& much good advice very affectingly bade us farewel.
Sollemnity & Distress appeared almost in every countenance, several
students that had come 5 & 600 miles & just got letters in college were
now obliged under every disadvantage to retire with their effects, or leave
them behind, which several through the impossibility of getting a cariage
at so confused a time were obliged to do, & lose them all as all hopes of
continuing longer in peace at Nassau were now taken away I began to
look out for some place where I might pursue my studies & as Mr. J.
Johnson had spoke to me to teach his son I accordingly went there &
agreed to stay with him till spring.
Next day I sent my Trunk & Desk to his house & settled all my
business at college. On Sunday evening Gen. Washington retreated
from Brunswick – I then went to Johnsons.
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During the time Mrs. Stockton was forced to stay at
Freehold, Morven was occupied by Lord Cornwallis and
his officers. They wantonly destroyed its furnishings,
even to some of the woodwork. Little Anice Stockton
had good cause to hate "that ignoble lord," as she
called him. On his surrender she published an ode of
congratulation to General Washington in The New
Jersey Gazette. He considered it such a choice exhibition of skill and taste that he wrote, "it afforded me a
pleasure beyond power of utterance." Later, on the
announcement of peace in 1783, she addressed another
ode to him; and the letter he sent her from Rocky
Hill, on its receipt, is considered the most charming and
playful of any of his compositions.
Richard Stockton died in the year 1781, but Mrs.
Stockton still lived on at Morven with his "dear memory." The beautiful letters he had penned her from
London in a happy year were a great consolation then.
In one in which he described the Queen's Birthnight
Ball, he eulogized the loveliness of the Ladies Hamilton
and Ancaster, and then told her that he "would rather
ramble with her along the rivulets of Morven or Red
Hill, and see the rural sports of the chaste little frogs."
When she wearily gazed out of her windows she was no
doubt cheered by the remembrance of what he had
written of their garden.
General Washington often dined at Morven; and
almost every President of the United States has shared
its hospitality, giving it a unique position among the
historic houses of America. Many of the Stockton
family have been distinguished and added to its fame;
but its most interesting occupants will always be the
romantic Emilia" and gallant "Lucius."
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Rocky Hill, Sept. 24th, 1783.
You apply to me, my dear madam, for absolution, as though I was
your future confessor and as though you had committed a crime, great
in itself, yet of the veneal class. You have reason good, for I find myself disposed to be a very indulgent ghostly advisor on this occasion, and
notwithstanding you are the most offending soul alive (that is if it is a
crime to write elegant poetry) yet if you will come and dine with me
on Thursday, and go through the proper course of penance which shall
be proscribed, I will strive hard to assist you in expiating these poetical
trespasses on this side of purgatory – nay, more, if it rests with me to
direct your future lubrications, I shall certainly urge you to a repetition
of the same conduct, on purpose to show what an admirable knack you
have at confession and reformation; and so without hesitation, I shall
venture to recommend the muse not to be restrained by ill-grounded
timidity, but to go on and prosper. You see, madam, when once the
woman has tempted us, and we have tasted the forbidden fruit, there is
no such thing as checking our appetite, whatever the consequences may
be. You will, I dare say, recognize our being the genuine descendants
of those who are reputed to be our progenitors. Before I come to the
more serious conclusion of my letter, I must beg leave to say a word or
two about these fine things you have been telling in such harmonious and
beautiful numbers. Fiction is to be sure the very life and soul of poetry
– all poets and poetesses have been indulged in the free and indisputable
use of it – time, out of mind, and to oblige you to make such an excellent poem on such a subject without any materials but those of simple
reality would be as cruel as the edict of Pharaoh, which compelled the
children of Israel to manufacture bricks without the necessary ingredients. Thus are you sheltered under the authority of prescription, and I
will not dare to charge you with an intentional breach of the rules of the
decalogue in giving so bright a coloring to the services I have been enabled to render my country, though I am not conscious of deserving more
at your hands than what the purest and most disinterested friendship has
a right to claim; actuated by which you will permit me to thank you in
the most affectionate manner for the kind wishes you have so happily
expressed for me and the partner of my domestic enjoyments. Be
assured we can never forget our friend at Morven, and that I am, my
dear madam, with every sentiment of friendship and esteem, your most
obedient and obliged servant.
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Mrs. Stockton.
| G. Washington.
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