The topic of human beings being treated as property is a difficult one and we aim to address it with the appropriate gravitas. Morven Museum & Garden's mission is to preserve our legacy by sharing its authentic stories. By not shying away from our story of enslaved people, we believe our visitors will have a better understanding of how our world evolved to where we are today. Research into the men, women, and children enslaved by the Stockton’s at Morven is ongoing, funded in part by a grant from the William Short Fund for New Jersey of the National Trust for Historic Preservation; a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities; along with additional funding provided by Yvette Lanneaux, Colleen Goggins, Lisa and Michael Ullmann, Liza Morehouse, and Jill M. Barry. This online resource will be updated as new information is discovered. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this online resource do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

Slavery at Morven

As wealthy lawyers, the first two generations of Stocktons at Morven enslaved men, women, and children on site. At the expense of the enslaved, the Stocktons lived a comfortable lifestyle and increased their wealth with forced labor. Like other signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Stockton held people in bondage while signing a document that declared  “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The rhetoric of revolutionary America—freedom, equality, and liberty—was inescapably intertwined with the practice of slavery. 

The identities of enslaved people are difficult to uncover, as their stories were not valued by those recording history. Census records help, although only men who were able to work were required to be listed—this leaves the number of enslaved women, children, and the elderly unknown. We know that those held here in bondage were born, worked, and died at Morven, and others ran away or were sold, some were manumitted.  

In 1804, the State of New Jersey passed an act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, making it the last northern state to do so. Records indicate that by the time the third generation of Stocktons took ownership of Morven in 1840, enslaved people no longer lived on the property. At first, they were replaced by free African Americans, and then eventually by immigrants from Ireland and Germany. Servants worked at Morven well into the twentieth century.

From various correspondence the following names are known to have worked at Morven for the Stockton family.  Inhabitants who are known to have been enslaved are labeled as such, while names without labels represent inhabitants whose status at Morven is unclear and require more research.