*Hayridge Farm (later known as Constitution Hill), c. 1865. Collection of the Historical Society of Princeton.* Betsey Stockton was born into slavery at Hayridge Farm. The farm was the property of Major Robert Stockton (1750–1805) who enslaved Betsey's mother. The identities of Betsey's parents are unknown, although sources indicate that her father was a white man. By 1816 Betsey was using the surname "Stockton."

Robert Field Stockton and the American Colonization Society

Betsey Stockton (1798–1865) is well-known in Princeton. While she never lived at Morven, she was born into slavery at Hayridge Farm (later known as Constitution Hill), the home of Robert Stockton (1750–1805), a cousin of Richard the Signer (and father to Ebenezer who was the doctor that delivered Kate or Catharine, Child of Nancy).

*Betsey Stockton,* c. 1863. Collection of Mission Houses Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii

There has been extensive research about Betsey and her life, some of which can be found through the Princeton & Slavery Project linked below.

PRINCETON AND SLAVERY

As a young child, Betsey was given to Robert’s daughter Elizabeth (1756–1807) and her husband Reverend Ashbel Green (1762–1848). Green freed Betsey in 1817 or 1818, and she traveled as a missionary to the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawaii). Upon her return, Betsey became one of the first congregants of the First Presbyterian Church of Colour of Princeton (today the Witherspoon Street Church) and served as a teacher for over thirty years to the African American children of Princeton. In 2021, Princeton Theological Seminary named the Center for Black Church Studies in Betsey’s honor. The Theological Seminary has also explored its own ties to slavery which can be found at Princeton Seminary and Slavery.