(October 1, 1730–February 28, 1781), was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was a member of the Continental Congress, 1776; an associate justice on the Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1774–76; and a member of the Executive Council of New Jersey, 1768–76.
His son Richard was a U.S. Senator, 1796–99; and a U.S. Representative, 1813–15. Another son, Robert, served with prominence as a U.S. Naval officer in the War of 1812; helped freed slaves found the country of Liberia, West Africa in 1821; and conquered California, proclaiming it a U.S. Territory, on August 17, 1846. Robert also served as a U.S. Senator, 1851–53; and was honored when Stockton, California, was named after him.
In his Last Will and Testament, Richard Stockton wrote:
As my children will have frequent occasion of perusing this instrument, and may probably be peculiarly impressed with the last words of their father, I think proper here, not only to subscribe to the entire belief of the great leading doctrine of the Christian religion … but also in the heart of a father’s affection, to charge and exhort them to remember “that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”696