Robert F. Stockton
Robert F. Stockton | |
---|---|
Military Governor of California | |
In office July 29, 1846 – January 16, 1847 | |
Preceded by | John D. Sloat |
Succeeded by | Stephen W. Kearny |
Personal details | |
Born | Robert Field Stockton August 20, 1795 Democratic |
Awards | Fort Stockton, Texas, Stockton, Missouri
United States of America |
Branch/service | United States Navy |
Years of service | 1811–1850 |
Rank | Commodore |
Commands | Princeton Congress Pacific Squadron New Jersey militia |
Battles/wars | War of 1812 Mexican–American War |
Robert Field Stockton (August 20, 1795 – October 7, 1866) was a
Biography
Robert F. Stockton was born at
Stockton was appointed a
One source said that he "leveled a pistol at King Peter's head and thereby convinced the latter to sell some of his territory".[3] Though this story of coercion is now being severely challenged by Smithsonian Magazine as being fraudulent propaganda, because the original contract, records, and contemporary press articles have been found.
These show that Liberia was founded when "the two men [Ayers & Stockton] spent four days ashore negotiating a contract with local leaders to purchase a narrow tract of land that scholars estimate covered about 140 acres. Payment would come in the form of trade goods... together worth roughly $7,000 in today's money. Both parties also pledged to live in peace and friendship for ever. Ayers recorded the deal in careful script on the front and back of a single sheet of paper. He signed it along with Stockton and six local leaders, who referred to themselves as Peter, George, Zoda, Long Peter, Governor, and Jimmy. They were called "kings" in the contract, although they were not monarchs in the European sense... American Newspapers published accounts of the purchase and transcripts of the contract...". Fourteen years later, in 1835 the Contract, which had been brought to the U.S. under safekeeping of the American Colonization Society, mysteriously went missing. "... Over the ensuing decades that loss [of the original document] contributed to the myth that the contract had never existed at all - that the Americans had simply seized the land by force or fraud... Because Ayers kept a detailed journal of the 1821 journey to Cape Mesurado [now Liberia], and newspapers printed the text of the agreement, we now know much of what happened that December. But the absence of the original document left an enormous hole in the historical record.
That myth was exploded by the August 2021 re-discovery of that Contract at the Chicago History Museum, among the donated papers of Elias Caldwell, clerk for the Supreme Court during the tenure of George Washington's nephew Justice Bushrod Washington, who was a co-founder of the American Colonization Society. The Contract was among the co-founder's papers and, while "out of sight/out of mind", it was forgotten.[4]
Business affairs
During the later 1820s and into the 1830s, Stockton primarily devoted his attention to business affairs in New Jersey. In addition, Stockton owned and operated the Tellurium gold mine in Goochland and Fluvanna counties in Virginia. He had purchased it in 1848, after its discovery in 1832.[bare URL PDF]</ref>[5] His son John P. Stockton was born during this period. He later followed his father into politics and was elected as a U.S. senator representing New Jersey.
In 1835, Stockton purchased a property in Monmouth County, New Jersey, called "Sea Girt".[6] The property was purchased in 1875 by a group of land developers, with the name of Stockton's estate ultimately leading to the choice of the name Sea Girt, New Jersey, when the borough was established in 1918.[7]
In 1838, Stockton resumed active naval service as a
This ship became
Cleared by the court of any wrongdoing in the explosion incident, Stockton was sent by President
Mexican–American War
Conquest of California
On July 23, 1846,
On August 11, 1846, Commodore Stockton marched on
On December 6, 1846, Stockton learned that
Later, the combined forces consolidated control over San Diego, and in January 1847 won the minor skirmishes at the
Political pursuits
Stockton resigned from the Navy in May 1850 and returned to business and political pursuits. In 1851, he was elected as a Democrat from New Jersey to the United States Senate, where he sponsored a bill to abolish
He was a delegate to the unsuccessful Peace Conference of 1861 that attempted to settle the secession crisis; instead the American Civil War began later that year. In 1863, he was appointed to command the New Jersey militia when the Confederate Army invaded Pennsylvania. Stockton died at Princeton, New Jersey, in October 1866, and is buried in the Princeton Cemetery.
Legacy
Four U.S. Navy ships have been named
Formerly Commodore Stockton Elementary School in San Francisco between Clay and Pacific Streets was named after him. Stockton Street in San Jose was named after him and his Garden Alameda San Jose neighborhood. In Sacramento, Stockton Boulevard is the historic thoroughfare linking Sacramento and Stockton, now superseded by Highway 99 and Interstate 5.
References
- ^ A Sketch of the Life of Com. Robert F. Stockton By John Bayard Samuel John Bayard, Samuel Bayard page 9
- ^ Crawford, Amy; "The Real Deal: The Founding Document of Liberia Went Missing for Nearly 200 years, Then a Maryland Historian began His Search", Smithsonian Magazine July/August 2022
- ^ Burin, Eric; Slavery and the Peculiar Solution, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 2005, p. 141.
- ^ Crawford, Amy; "The Real Deal: The Founding Document of Liberia Went Missing for Nearly 200 years, Then a Maryland Historian began His Search", Smithsonian Magazine July/August 2022, pages 22-28
- ^ Green, Fletcher (Jul 1937). "Gold Mining in Ante-Bellum Virginia". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 45 (3): 357.
- ^ Library & Archives Manuscript Collections - Collection 31 Morris Family Papers, 1875-1968, The Monmouth County Historical Association. Accessed October 1, 2015. "In the early part of the nineteenth century the 800 acres which comprised Sea Girt were divided into two farms owned by men named Bell and Sherman. In 1835 Commodore Robert Stockton bought the farm from John Sherman and in 1847 Dr. Charles Montrose Graham of New York City bought the Bell farm."
- ^ History, Borough of Sea Girt. Accessed October 1, 2015. "In 1853, Commodore Robert F. Stockton acquired the large tract of land and built a lavish summer estate in the area between Stockton Lake and Wreck Pond. Yet it was not until 1875, after a group of Philadelphia land developers purchased the land that Sea Girt's growth as a community was spurred."
- ^ Fatal Cruise of the Princeton – Page 1
- ^ A Sketch of the Life of Com. Robert F. Stockton. Derby & Jackson. 1856.
- ^ "Monitor 150th Anniversary - Inventor John Ericsson". monitor.noaa.gov. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
- ISBN 978-1-59884-530-3.
- ^ Hubert Howe Bancroft (1886). History of California: 1846-1848. History Company. p. 255.
- ^ "Fort Stockton #54". Office of Historic Preservation, California State Parks. Retrieved 2012-10-07.
Bibliography
- United States Congress. "Robert F. Stockton (id: S000942)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 2009-05-03.
- Brockmann, R. John, (2009) Commodore Robert F. Stockton, 1795-1866: Protean Man for a Protean Nation Cambria Press, Amherst, Massachusetts, p. 622. The only scholarly biography. ISBN 978-1-60497-630-4 Url
- Beach, Edward Latimer. The United States Navy: A 200-year History. Houghton Mifflin Company. C 1986. pp. 196–221.
Further reading
- Jordan, Jonathan W. (2006). Lone Star Navy: Texas, the Fight for the Gulf of Mexico, and the Shaping of the American West. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books. p. 293. ISBN 978-1-57488-512-5.
- ISBN 978-0030657771.