Stieglitz, Alfred (b. Jan. 1, 1864; d. July 13, 1946). Photographer. Alfred Stieglitz was born in Hoboken to wealthy German Jewish parents and was educated in New York. At nineteen, while continuing his schooling in Berlin, he began experimenting with photography. As the editor of influential magazines Camera Notes and Camera Work, founder of the Photo-Secession group of pictorialist photographers, gallery operator, and agent for important American painters (including his second wife, Georgia O’Keeffe), Stieglitz became one of the most influential figures in art and photography in the early twentieth century. His 1910 photograph The Pool—Deal was taken on a vacation at the Jersey Shore. Although he spent most of his life in New York City, Stieglitz did not forget his New Jersey origins. His most famous statement succinctly summarizes his life: "I was born in Hoboken. I am an American. Photography is my passion. The search for Truth my obsession.”
Photograph of Alfred Stieglitz, with bow and arrow, and his father, 1870.
Still, Charity Sidney (b. 1775; d. 1857). Runaway slave. In 1804, after New Jersey passed a gradual manumission act, Charity Still and her husband, Levin Still, enslaved on a Chesapeake Bay plantation, vowed to make their way to South Jersey, where Levin’s family, according to oral tradition, had settled in Lawn side. Levin purchased his freedom and went on ahead, but Charity and their four children had to run away. The family’s reunion was short-lived, as the angry slave master captured the runaways and returned them all to slavery, under even more severe conditions. When Charity planned her second escape, she understood that the danger would be intensified, so she left her two sons behind, believing they would be safe until her husband could return to "steal” them. Following the course of the Underground Railroad, Charity Still brought her two daughters safely into the Pine Barrens.
One of the two sons left behind, Peter Still, was ultimately able to buy his way out of slavery and make his way north. In 1850 he encountered another black man in the Philadelphia office of an abolitionist group. The two men struck up a conversation, and entirely by chance they discovered that they were brothers. The other man was William Still, who had been born to Charity after her escape to freedom. The story of this amazing coincidence was widely reported in northern newspapers.
Charity Still had eighteen children, including William, an abolitionist, philanthropist, and millionaire called by some the "Father of the Underground Railroad”; Dr. James Still, a herbalist and philosopher known as the "Black Doctor of the Pines”; and Peter Still, called by northern newspapers the "Man Who Bought Himself.” Among her grandchildren was Caroline Still Anderson, one of Philadelphia’s first black women physicians. The descendants of Charity and Levin Still continue to meet annually at a celebrated family reunion in Lawn side.
Still, James (b. Apr. 9,1812; d. Mar. 9, 1882). Herbalist, "Black Doctor of the Pines,” and autobiographer. One of eighteen children of former slaves Levin and Charity Still, James was the brother of antislavery activists Peter and William Still. Still’s first wife, Angelina, and their child, Beulah, died of tuberculosis; with his second wife, Henrietta Thomas, he had eight children. His oldest son, James Thomas Still, became the second African American to receive a medical degree from Harvard University (1871).
Still’s privately printed autobiography—a unique document in the history of medicine, New Jersey, and African Americans—recounts his gradual rise to prosperity as a medical practitioner and major landowner in Medford. Barred by poverty and racial prejudice from schooling and formal medical training, Still began studying books on medical botany in his early thirties. Much like contemporary eclectic and botanic physicians, Still rejected the toxic mercury-based therapies favored by "regular” medicine. Still’s success at using plant remedies attracted black and white patients from South Jersey and Philadelphia and made him a serious competitor to local white physicians, who caricatured him in the Transactions of the Medical Society of New Jersey (1866) as "an Ethiopian enjoying a large and lucrative practice, guided, as he affirms, solely by inspiration.” Still is buried in Jacob’s Chapel Cemetery, Mount Laurel.
James Still, c. 1877.
Still, William (b. Nov. 7, 1821; d. July 14, 1902). Abolitionist, writer, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. William Still was the youngest of the eighteen children of Levin and Charity Still, both of whom came to New Jersey from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. His father came first as a free black who had purchased his freedom. He settled in Springtown, where Still’s mother joined him with their four children after escaping from slavery. Captured and returned to bondage, she escaped a second time and, with her two daughters, settled in Burlington County with her husband; the two sons she left behind were ultimately sold in a southern slave market.
From early boyhood on, Still worked on farms, initially one belonging to his family; he had little formal education. In 1844, he moved to Philadelphia where, several years later, he began working as a clerk for the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. When Philadelphia abolitionists organized a vigilance committee to aid the numerous runaway slaves reaching the city after the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act’s passage, they named Still its chairman. In this position he established ties to other important abolitionists such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and John Brown. By the mid 1850s Still had become a leader of Philadelphia’s black community. He spearheaded efforts in 1859 to desegregate the city’s public transit system, opened a stove store during the Civil War, and later established a very successful coal business. His 1872 classic The Underground Railroad is largely an account of the fugitive slaves he aided in his work with the vigilance committee.
William Still.
Stillwater. 28.5-square-mile township in Sussex County. Formed from Hardwick Township, Stillwater was incorporated in 1824. The township contains many historic buildings and farms, as well as a restored gristmill. Lime kilns also operated in the past. Local legend has it that Hessian soldiers from the Revolutionary War are buried in Stillwater, but there is no evidence to support such a claim. Before the 1870s, when the South Mountain Railroad went bankrupt, there was railroad construction in the area, but it was never completed. Today the township hosts antique shops and other small businesses. Route 80 runs by Still-water, but the township remains largely rural. The town has a large state park on Swartswood Lake, which includes about 1,774 acres. Visitors can swim, boat, and picnic in the lake area.
In 2000 the population of 4,267 was 98 percent white. The median household income was $63,750.
Stockton, Annis Boudinot (b.July 1, 1736; d. Feb. 6, 1801). Poet. When poems published in newspapers in the 1760s, 1770s, and 1780s were marked with the byline "By a Lady of New Jersey,” readers assumed the author was Annis Boudinot Stockton. Stockton was a leading poet of her generation, well known among local circles in the Middle Atlantic area as a spokesperson on both women’s issues (their intelligence and wit, their strength in support of family concerns, and their value to the federal government) and the leadership qualities of George Washington. These two key areas, what might today be called feminism and politics, provide the themes that dominate Stockton’s best writing.
Annis Boudinot was the eldest daughter of Catherine Williams and Elias Boudinot. Her family descended from French Huguenots who had originally settled in the Caribbean. Her father owned and worked a small Caribbean plantation, but the plantation life and the climate of the Caribbean suited Elias Boudinot less well than mercantile endeavors, so he moved the family first to Darby, Pennsylvania, and then to New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he set up a copper mine. In the middle 1750s, Boudinot moved his family to Princeton, where Annis was afforded opportunities for education and socialization that would bring her lasting recognition. Although she was courted by Princeton tutor Benjamin Young Prime, Annis Boudinot became attached to Richard Stockton in the middle 1750s, and she married him during the fall or winter of 1757-1758. Together, the Stocktons became social leaders in Princeton, and their home, Morven, became a center for the activities of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and then for the new government, when it was forced to remove from nearby Philadelphia to Princeton during the Revolution.
Of her education Stockton had little to say, but her poems reveal that she was well read in the poets of her day, including Alexander Pope, James Beattie, James Thomson, and John Milton. Her interests took her into legal affairs (her poems mention William Blackstone and Edward Coke), history (she admired Catherine Saw bridge Macaulay), and scientific and natural philosophy (the poems mention John Locke and Isaac Newton). Recognized for her published and impromptu verse on women’s concerns and for poems celebrating domestic life, Stockton’s greatest poetic contributions appeared during the American Revolution and its aftermath. Some of her poems honor military leaders such as Peter Schuyler and Joseph Warren and celebrate military accomplishments, like the defeat of Cornwallis. These were circulated widely, and they also reached print. Stockton’s poems to George Washington were regularly placed into print by her brother Elias Boudinot (then president of Congress) and by Washington’s friends and staff. These poems celebrate Washington’s military prowess, his grace in adversity, and his courage in the face of potential defeat. Her poem "Addressed to General Washington, in the year 1777, after the battles of Trenton and Princeton” (published in the Columbian Magazine in January 1787) invokes a tone of mythic prophecy still common in military tributes today.
Stockton, Betsey (b. 1798; d. Oct. 24,1865). Missionary and educator. Given as a slave by Robert Stockton to his daughter, Elizabeth Stockton Green, Betsey Stockton served as domestic nurse, cook, and seamstress in the Green household and was taught to read by the Greens’ son, James. Freed by the Greens in 1818, she became a Presbyterian missionary to the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) in 1822 and started the first English school for common people there. When she returned to the Princeton area in 1833, she helped found the Witherspoon Street Church in Princeton. As an able, respected friend of both black and white, she was influential in initiating public education for black children in Princeton. She taught for ten years in Princeton’s black public school, District School No. 6.
Betsey Stockton, c. 1860.
Stockton, Richard (b. Oct. 1, 1730; d. Feb. 28,1781). Lawyer, judge, landholder, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Richard Stockton was the son of John Stockton and Abigail Phillips. John was a farmer, a presiding judge of the court of common pleas of Somerset County, and owner of Morven, one of the largest houses in colonial New Jersey. Richard attended Nottingham Academy in Maryland and graduated in the first class from the College of New Jersey (Princeton), studying law with David Ogden. In 1754 he was admitted to the bar. He married Annis Boudinot, a prominent poet. As a leading lawyer in Somerset County, Stockton became active in protesting against British activities in the 1760s and 1770s. In 1774 Gov. William Franklin appointed him a member of the provincial council, where he defended the rights of the colonists.
In June 1776, Stockton went to the Continental Congress as a delegate from New Jersey and signed the Declaration of Independence. That August, he lost by one vote to Robert Livingston in the first election by the legislature of New Jersey for governor. Instead, he was elected chief justice of the supreme court but declined the position to remain in Congress. Appointed to the position of colonel with the New Jersey Line, Stockton served on a board to ensure that reinforcements got to Gen. George Washington, who had been forced to retreat from New York City across New Jersey to Pennsylvania. When the British reached Princeton, Stockton fled with his family to Monmouth County. He was captured and treated severely while held in Perth Amboy and then in New York City, where he was kept in irons and without food. Stockton was released from jail after agreeing to take an oath not to take up arms again. He returned to Morven, which had been badly damaged by the British. Stockton died there of cancer on February 28,1781.
Richard Stockton.
Stockton, Robert Field (b. Aug. 20, 1795; d. Oct. 7, 1866). Naval officer, politician, and business leader. Robert Field Stockton was the son of Richard Stockton and Mary Field Stockton, and the grandson of Richard Stockton, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Robert grew up in his family home, Morven, in Princeton. His father was a lawyer, political leader, and landowner. Having entered the College of New Jersey at thirteen, he left without finishing in order to become a midshipman. During the War of 1812, he fought under Commodore John Rodgers and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant for gallantry in the defense of Baltimore.
After the War of 1812, Stockton fought against Algerian pirates and also played a prominent role in founding Liberia as a refuge for slaves from the United States. Working with the American Colonization Society, Stockton secured the land needed for the experiment from a local ruler. In 1823 while on duty in the southern part of the United States, Stockton met and married Harriet Maria Potter, the daughter of a wealthy merchant from Charleston, South Carolina.
During a leave at his home in Princeton, Stockton became involved in presidential politics, at first supporting John Quincy Adams in 1824 and then switching to Andrew Jackson for president in 1828 after President John Quincy Adams had refused to appoint his father to a vacant federal district court position. For many years, even while continuing to serve in the navy, Stockton played a behind-the-scenes role in Democratic politics in the state.
In 1830, with the help of his father-in-law, Stockton purchased a controlling interest in the Delaware and Raritan Canal, which had received a charter from the state. When the enterprise ran into financial difficulty, Stockton reached an agreement with John Stevens, who was attempting to build the Camden and Amboy Railroad, and joined the two companies together into the Joint Companies, which gave them a monopoly on transportation crossing the state from Philadelphia to New York City. Stockton became chairman of the canal company, which for many years stirred up considerable opposition. Known as the twin monopolies, the company was one of the first corporations in New Jersey to lobby and buy off legislators.
Promoted to the rank of captain, Stockton spent a brief tour in England where he met John Ericsson, a Swedish engineer, who designed a screw-propeller ship for him. On February 28, 1844, Stockton invited four hundred guests including the president to view the new ship, the SS Princeton, when a gun exploded, killing two cabinet members, a servant, and two sailors and severely injuring Stockton. A court of inquiry, however, exonerated him from all blame.
During the Mexican War, Commodore Stockton aboard the SS Congress in command of the Pacific fleet captured Monterey, California, with the aid of Charles Fremont, the commander of a land military force. With reinforcements from Gen. Stephen Kearny, on September 15, 1846, Stockton declared California to be a territory of the United States and organized a civilian and military government for the province. President James Polk had appointed Kearny governor of the territory, but Stockton had appointed Fremont and refused to accept the change. As a consequence both men were ordered to return east. Although Stockton arrived in Washington to a cool reception, he was given a hero’s welcome in New Jersey and Philadelphia and had a new city in California named for him.
In 1850 Stockton resigned from the navy to run for the U.S. Senate. He was elected as a Democrat and took his seat on December 2, 1851. In his brief stay in the Senate, Stockton played an important role in ending flogging aboard naval vessels, reorganizing the Navy Department, and the commissioning of a new SS Princeton to replace the older ship, which had been scrapped after the war. Stockton resigned in 1853 from the Senate to be replaced by his brother-in-law, John R. Thomson. After retiring from the Senate, Stockton resumed his position as president of the Delaware and Raritan Canal, and won a renewal of the company’s charter and built the West Jersey Railroad.
As the major parties were breaking up, Stockton, who had presidential ambitions, joined the American party, a nativist organization, but returned to the Democratic party in i860. He attended the Peace Conference the following year, and took a conservative position on slavery. Married to a southern woman, Stockton supported the Union during the war but opposed Lincoln’s policies. In his last years, he thus remained, as he had always been, a very controversial figure.
