Historic Morven

Morven has played a role in the history of the state and the nation for more than two hundred years. The residents of Morven have included a signer of the Declaration of Independence, one of the first women poets in the country, two United States Senators, and five New Jersey governors. The daily lives of all of the inhabitants of Morven and the development of the house and grounds reflect centuries of changing political, economic, cultural, and social history in New Jersey.

The property that became Morven was part of a 5,500-acre tract purchased from William Penn in 1701 by the first Richard Stockton to settle in Princeton. In 1754, his grandson, Richard Stockton, one of the leading attorneys in the American colonies and later a signer of the Declaration of Independence, acquired 150 acres of this land and soon thereafter he and his wife, Annis Boudinot Stockton, built a house on the site. Annis, the daughter of a French Huguenot silversmith, became a published poet. She named their house "Morven," after a mythical Gaelic kingdom in the epic poems of Ossian.

Morven Estate
55 Stockton Rd, Princeton, NJ 08542
Phone: 609-683-4495