Stockton, Robert

Stockton, Robert (Field) (1795–1866) naval officer; born in Princeton, N.J. Joining the navy in 1811, he fought in the War of 1812 and against the Barbary pirates. Leaving the navy in 1828, he spent the next ten years in New Jersey, where he prospered from canal construction and railroad investments; he had also been active in trying to get freed slaves to return to Africa and helped to find the territory that later became Liberia. Rejoining the navy in 1838, he supported John Ericsson by commissioning and commanding the navy's first screw-propeller driven ship, the USS Princeton. Sent to reinforce the U.S. forces in California when war with Mexico seemed imminent, he arrived in Monterey in July 1846; he relieved Commodore John Sloat, put himself in command of all naval and land forces, and by mid-August was declaring California a territory of the U.S.A. After losing out in a dispute with General Stephen Kearny over who exercised authority in California, Stockton returned to the East and resigned from the navy in 1850. After brief service as a senator (Dem., N.J.; 1851–53) he spent his last years as president of a canal company. Stockton, Calif., was named after him in 1850.