Richard Stockton

Richard Stockton was born in 1730 near Princeton, New Jersey, graduated from the College of New Jersey, and became one of the colony's leading lawyers. He served as a trustee of the college and helped bring John Witherspoon from Scotland to be its president. In 1776 he was elected to the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence. That winter, after the British drove Washington through New Jersey, Loyalists captured Stockton. He was imprisoned, including time in harsh conditions in New York, and was at last released on parole. He did not return to Congress. The episode left his health ruined and his reputation under a cloud, because a parole required a promise not to resume the fight; later claims that he formally recanted independence have not been firmly proved. His house, Morven, was looted. Stockton died at home in 1781, before the war was over.

See also: Signers of the Declaration · John Witherspoon · Francis Hopkinson · John Hart · Abraham Clark