by Kate S | Sep 25, 2025 | History
Elias Boudinot IV & Hannah Stockton Boudinot. Oils by Charles Willson Peale, 1784. Images courtesy of the Princeton University Art Museum
Elias Boudinot IV, the son of a merchant and silversmith was born on May 2, 1740 in Philadelphia. As an infant, he was baptized by the famed evangelist preacher Rev. George Whitefield at Philadelphia’s Second Presbyterian Church where his father Elias Boudinot III was a Deacon. The next door neighbor of the Boudinots on High Street, was none other than postmaster and Poor Richard’s Almanac and the Whitefield Sermons publisher Benjamin Franklin. Elias enrolled in 1751 at age 11 in the very first class of the new Academy of Philadelphia, a school Franklin had helped found and led as the president of the board of trustees. This one year was the only formal schooling Elias would ever receive, because the elder Boudinot moved his family to New Jersey in 1752 to chase a new business investment in a copper mine. The mine would ultimately fail. Elias was a teenager in 1756 when the family arrived in Princeton and rented a small home from the College of New Jersey President Aaron Burr Sr. – directly across the street from the new college building called Nassau Hall. In 1748, Richard Stockton had graduated from the college’s first class when it was still located in Newark. His father, family patriarch John Stockton had donated a tract of land to help lure the college to the sleepy village of Princeton which at that time was part of Somerset County (Mercer County was formed in 1838). John Stockton died in 1757, and left much of his land and wealth to his son Richard. The wealthy Princeton lawyer Richard Stockton took both Elias and his older brother Elisha Boudinot under his wing and gave them apprenticeships to study the practice of law at his new estate located about a mile from Nassau Hall. Richard Stockton fell in love with Elias’s older sister Annis, and married her in 1758 at Morven – the Stockton Family home in Princeton (a National Historic Landmark now known as Morven Museum and Gardens). It was Annis who named the estate “Morven” after a mythical Gaelic kingdom. Annis Boudinot became one of the first published female poets in the British colonies. Notably, Boudinot’s brother-in-law Richard Stockton, his nephew Benjamin Rush (Rush had married Annis and Richard’s daughter Susannah in early 1776), and the man they all recruited to become the President of the College of New Jersey, John Witherspoon would all be signers of the Declaration of Independence.
In 1758, a courtship had begun between Stockton’s sister Hannah (b. 1736 – d. 1808) and Elias Boudinot IV. Elias moved to start his own law practice in Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth) New Jersey in 1760 at age 20. By 1761 Elias felt his business had flourished enough to propose to Hannah Stockton, and on April 21, 1762, they married.
Within 9 months after their marriage, the Boudinot’s had their first child Maria on January 14, 1763, followed eleven months later by Susan Vergereau Boudinot on December 21, 1764. The death of Maria at age 2 in 1765 devastated the young couple and they had no more children of their own. Susan grew up as a precocious only child. Famously, while the Boudinots were visiting her father’s friend and staunch loyalist Royal Governor of New Jersey William Franklin, the young Susan Boudinot calmly tossed the tea that was poured for her out a window – reminding all present that she had pledged to not drink British tea. Susan would go on 
to marry William Bradford, Esq. in 1784 at the age of 19. Bradford received multiple degrees at Princeton where his classmates included his close friend James Madison as well as Aaron Burr. He volunteered as a Private in the Continental Army, and quickly ascended to the rank of Colonel and aide to General Washington. He later became PA State Attorney General, Justice of the State Supreme Court of PA, and the second US Attorney General. William Bradford, only 39 years of age and under the care of his wife’s famous cousin Dr. Benjamin Rush died of yellow fever in the sweltering Philadelphia summer of 1795. Susan, now a 30 year old widow, never remarried and shared a home with her parents until their deaths. Susan subsequently was instrumental in collecting and preserving documents cementing her father’s legacy.
Elias Boudinot’s organized for the care and support of the 9 orphaned children of murdered patriots Hannah Ogden Caldwell (killed June 7, 1780 during the Battle of Connecticut Farms), and Rev. James Caldwell (murdered by a loyalist in Elizabethtown on November 24, 1781). Boudinot collected donations from Generals Washington, Lincoln, and Maxwell, Lafayette and other patrons. Elisha Boudinot adopted 8 year old Esther Flynt Caldwell – who would grow up to marry the Princeton graduate Rev. Robert Finley, long time pastor of the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church. The Marquis de Lafayette adopted John Edwards Caldwell into his care and took him to France to be educated. Upon John’s return to the U.S. in
William Bradford, Esq.
U.S. Attorney General.
Image courtesy of U.S. Justice Dept.
1791, he lived with Elias in Philadelphia, practiced law with him, received a role in the John Adams administration, and later co-founded the American Bible Society with Elias. Elias took in the 5 year old Elias Boudinot Caldwell (Hannah and Rev. James Caldwell had named their son in admiration of their Church Trustee Elias in 1776). Young Elias B. Caldwell studied law at Princeton courtesy of his adoptive father, and then trained with him in Philadelphia. Upon moving to the new Capital in Washington, EB Caldwell formed a law practice with Francis Scott Key, and became the Clerk of US Supreme Court. It was Elias Boudinot Caldwell who held the bible or book as the Chief Justice (John Adams opted to place his hand on a law text rather than the bible for his oath) administered the Constitutional Oath of Office for the first 7 Presidential inaugurations in Washington DC. After the British burned the US Capital in 1814 (which at that time also housed the Supreme Court offices and chambers), the Supreme Court met temporarily in his Caldwell’s house on Capitol Hill, where now stands the Library of Congress.
Elias Boudinot’s talents for the law, finance, politics, his eloquent communication skills, and his new family connections gave him high a stature and wealth in colonial New Jersey. As a young man, he became president of the board of trustees of the Elizabeth Presbyterian Church, and a founding board member of Elizabethtown Academy School where young students Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr, Jr. prepared for college. In 1772-1773, after arriving in America, Hamilton was a frequent guest in the Boudinot home. He stayed in touch with the Boudinots for the rest of his life. In 1791 Hamilton partnered with both Elisha and Elias Boudinot, and William Paterson in the “Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures”, whose goal was the industrial development of Paterson New Jersey.
In 1771, Elias was on his way to creating a small personal fortune. That year he purchased what is now the Ross Farm – a little over 100 acres of land in Basking Ridge from Edward Lewis. His goal was to supply needed items such as meat, dairy products, wheat and hay for his life in the more urban Elizabethtown (he would buy Boxwood Hall there in 1772), and have a country retreat. He bought horses, livestock, seed, a wagon, and new gates. He paid for repairs to the “ditch in the meadow”, and to the “English Barn”. His official home would remain in Elizabeth for a while longer. Boudinot served on New Jersey’s first Committee on Correspondence, formed in 1774, tasked with contacting the legislatures of each colony so that they could offer concerted opposition toward British encroachments. In August 1775, Boudinot secretly rounded up and sent to General George Washington desperately-needed supplies of gunpowder. A year later he served as an aide-de-camp to 1st Continental Congress delegate and Brigadier General William Livingston, a fellow Elizabethtown lawyer and co-mentor to the young Alexander Hamilton. Livingston became the state’s first governor elected under the new state constitution in 1776, which made him a wanted man by the Tories and British. Boudinot’s next door neighbor and law client in Basking Ridge General William Alexander (a.k.a. Lord Stirling) was married to Livingston’s sister Sarah.
With the British in firm control of New York City, Staten Island, and Long Island, Elizabethtown New Jersey was proving too close to British and Tory action. Boudinot and his wife moved west to their farm on the “Baskinridge Meetinghouse Road” in November 1776. It was to this farm that General Washington delivered a formal letter to Elias Boudinot on April 1, 1777 asking him to serve as Commissary General of Prisoners and Intelligence, and offered a commission of Colonel. Boudinot initially turned him down in a face-to-face meeting. As Elias wrote, the General had no intention of accepting a denial: “he very kindly objected to the conduct of gentlemen of the country refusing to join him in his arduous Struggle. That he had nothing in view but the salvation of his Country, but it was impossible for him to accomplish it alone: if men of character and influence would not come forward and join him in his exertions, all would be lost.” Boudinot accepted the post under this pressure from the great man, and served in this arduous role with great distinction and sacrifice. He lost much of his personal wealth and health as a result. He was in and out of British held New York City (and later British held Philadelphia) negotiating prisoner exchanges. Using his own funds, he arranged for desperately needed food, clothing, and lodging for Continental prisoners in British hands. At the same time, he toiled to make sure British and Hessian captives were treated humanely behind Continental lines. His accounting books, in the possession of the NY Public Library, detail these payments made to both prisoner support, and to a network of “intelligence gathering” or spies.
In November 1778, Boudinot was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, but remained active prisoner exchanges and intelligence issues. He oversaw the exchanges that returned General Charles Lee and Ethan Allen to the Continental Army among many others.
Elias was again elected to the Continental Congress in 1781, and was unanimously chosen by its members as President in 1782-1783. He was suddenly the highest ranking person at a pivotal moment in history – even his old friend and boss Washington treated him with deference in the many letters they exchanged. On January 20, 1783 Washington wrote Boudinot with sad news concerning their mutual friend: “I have the melancholy task before me, of acquainting your Excellency and Congress of the death of Major General Lord Stirling. The remarkable bravery, intelligence, and promptitude of his Lordship to perform his duty as an Officer had endeared him to the whole Army; and now make his loss the more sincerely regretted.” During his Presidency, he signed the Cessation of Hostilities with Great Britain. As President and de-facto Secretary of State, Elias helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris in concert with Jay, Jefferson, Laurens, and Franklin and completed it in its final form.
When unpaid and angry Pennsylvanian Militiamen marched menacingly on the Capitol in Philadelphia, Boudinot uprooted Congress and brought them to his beloved Princeton, utilizing Nassau Hall as the Capitol. The Stockton home of Morven became the Presidential home for these months. The Continental Army lay dispirited on the Hudson nearly two full years after the military victory was assured in Yorktown. Elias invited George and Martha Washington to Princeton to be honored by Congress and arranged for them to stay at the Widow Berrien’s large house (nearby “Rockingham”). Boudinot had the great pleasure to personally announce to the General that it was official – the signed Treaty of Paris was on its way to America. Immediately, Washington penned his famous farewell to his officers from Rockingham, and wrote a warm note to President Boudinot about wanting nothing more than to retire from public life and enjoy his Virginia plantation. Elias and George together became original honorary members of the Society of the Cincinnati at its founding in 1783.
Boudinot rented his Basking Ridge farm to Henry Southard, and returned to Elizabethtown in 1784. He then sold the property to Southard in 1785. Elias jumped back into private legal work, land and business investment. He had lost much of his wealth in the war’s 7 years. His vital work as a College of NJ Trustee helped to rebuild the institution after the Revolution. Boudinot’s retirement from public service was short lived – he was called upon to use his influence to ensure that the NJ Constitutional Convention of 1787 would quickly adopt the new US Constitution, becoming the third state to do so.
Elias Boudinot was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1789, and assumed leadership roles. He chaired the 1st Presidential Inauguration Committee which culminated in Washington’s swearing in on the balcony of NYC’s Federal Hall on April 30, 1789. Washington’s last stop on his way to NYC that morning was at Boudinot’s “Boxwood Hall” home in Elizabethtown. Boudinot had a front row seat for all phases of the day’s celebration and pomp – his letter to Hannah describing the day remains the most vivid and detailed that exists. Also in 1789 Boudinot chaired the House Committee to accept, edit, and get approval for James Madison’s submittals for the first amendments to the US Constitution which became the Bill of Rights.
With the amendments to the Constitution heading to the 11 states (North Carolina and Rhode Island had yet to ratify the original Constitution), Elias Boudinot presented a resolution to Congress asking President Washington “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity to peaceably establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.” In a Presidential Proclamation issued October 3, 1789, Washington declared the 4th Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving. While it wasn’t declared an official holiday until Abe Lincoln did so in 1863, Boudinot’s proposed day of thanks and peace has been celebrated every year since 1789.
Boudinot’s legal and writing prowess led to his involvement with the creation Judiciary Act of 1789, which set up the nation’s court systems. John Jay was sworn in as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court on 9-24-1789, and scheduled the first session of the new Court for February 1790. One of the first acts of the new Supreme Court that February was to admit Elias Boudinot as the very first member of the Supreme Court Bar. The next month, Elias Boudinot had perhaps his finest moment as an elected official. Exasperated that Congress would not accept petitions from the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and two groups of Quakers which asked “that you will promote mercy and justice towards this distressed race…” Boudinot took to the floor of the US House of Representatives on March 22, 1790 to deliver the first abolitionist speech by a member of Congress recorded in the Congressional record.
Boudinot’s legacy during those momentous 2 years of the first Congress were recognized when Yale University awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in 1790 – joining his respected contemporaries George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and William Livingston in that recognition.
Boudinot would serve 3 full terms in Congress 1789-1795 representing NJ until Washington appointed Boudinot the Third Director of the US Mint in October 1795, where he served until 1805. He sold Boxwood Hall and permanently moved with Hannah to a country estate they named Rose Hill in Philadelphia that year. Their daughter Susan had just become a young widow with the death of her husband and US Attorney General William Bradford in Philadelphia, and would be by her parents’ side for the rest of their lives. Retiring from the mint, Boudinot moved his family to Burlington, NJ in 1805. He devoted his remaining years to abolitionist work, writing books and pamphlets, correspondence, and philanthropic pursuits. He financed the creation of, and was the founding President of the American Bible Society in 1816. He set up scholarships and a natural history department at his beloved Princeton, and willed land and resources for Native Americans and the poor of Philadelphia. Elias and Hannah had pet names for each other. His beloved “Eugenia” – Hannah Stockton Boudinot died October 28, 1808, and her “Narcissus” Elias died on October 24, 1821. The couple, along with their daughter Susan and her husband William Bradford are buried together in the Saint Mary’s Episcopal Churchyard, Burlington. His tombstone bears the apt words: “his life was an exhibition of fervent piety of useful talent and of extensive benevolence.”
by Kate S | Sep 25, 2025 | History
Henry Southard & Sarah Lewis Southard. Image courtesy of the Somerset Hills Historical Society and the Township of Bernards.
Born in Long Island in 1747, Henry Southard moved to Basking Ridge from Long Island as an 8 year old boy in 1755. He worked on his parents’ (Abraham and Cornelia) farm and in 1771 married his 15 year old neighbor Sarah Lewis (b 1756, d. 1831). Sarah was the daughter of Edward Lewis, and granddaughter of Daniel Morris – both previous owners of the farm. They would have 13 children, with only 6 of them living into adulthood (the last 6 children were all born on the BSR Estate). It is hard to imagine that by the time she turned 21, Sarah had given birth to 3 sons, and buried 2 of them. Three of the Southard children (Stephen, Isaac, and Sarah) married siblings of the neighboring Doty family.
Based on Elias Boudinot’s accounting records, the two men knew each other well. Boudinot loaned Southard money, leased land to Southard for him to grow hay for the horses Henry used in his teamster business, rented him the entire property when the Boudinots moved out in 1783 (shortly after Elias was elected President of the United States under the Articles of Confederation), and in 1785 sold him the property. Southard was a Trustee and Elder of the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church for his entire adult life, and the Boudinots worshipped there while in Basking Ridge. In 1791, the Southards even named their 11th child Elias Boudinot Southard, who died as a 2 year old. Years later, Boudinot did the legal work to obtain military pensions for Southard and other men of Basking Ridge who served.
In 1776 Henry enlisted as a private in the Somerset County militia, and saw action in multiple skirmishes with British and Hessian troops. In 1777, Henry served as a Wagoner in Captain Jacob Ten Eyck’s company, First Battalion of the Somerset Militia under the overall command of William Alexander (aka “Lord Stirling”) in the Revolutionary War. This outfit was formed in 1775, and participated in the defense of New York City, the retreat across the Hudson, the operations of the Battles of Trenton, Princeton, and the protection of Washington’s Army in the first Morristown encampment of 1777. These Teamsters in the Militia were instrumental in the continual gathering of supplies for the encampment, and participating in the important “Forage Wars” campaign of 1777.
In addition to his service to his church and the militia, Henry Southard was a Justice of the Peace (1787-1792) and an elected member of the NJ General Assembly (1797-1799, and again in 1811). He was elected to the US House of Representatives for eight terms from March 4, 1801 to March 3, 1811, and from March 4, 1815 to March 3, 1821. When his son Samuel Lewis Southard was sworn in as a US Senator on January 26, 1821 they became the very first father and son to serve concurrently in Congress. Henry was a Congressman during all eight years that Thomas Jefferson was President, and never wavered in his support of the Jeffersonian political platform of shrinking government and eliminating the national debt. He helped form the Jeffersonian Party of New Jersey. Henry befriended the Virginian Congressman John Taliaferro who owned a large plantation named Hagley worked by dozens of slaves. Taliaferro would offer Henry’s 19 year old son Samuel a job tutoring his children and nephews in 1806 – a position that Samuel would stay in for five years, and where he would train in a career in law and politics. Samuelwould meet his future wife Rebecca Harrow at Hagley. Henry Southard’s connections, and exemplary reputation clearly helped his sons Isaac and Samuel business and political careers.
We know the Southards owned slaves while they had the farm. Somerset County records indicate that slaves were born into Henry’s ownership in 1808, 1810, and 1813. He freed his slave named Rebecca in 1815, three years before he sold the farm to George Slater. In the short time that Samuel and Henry served Congress at the same time, they were both named to the joint committee of House and Senate to consider the admission of Missouri to the union. Samuel prepared Henry Clay’s famous “Missouri Compromise” resolutions. Interestingly, Henry Southard’s voting record in Congress was consistently anti-slavery – supporting the Tallmadge Amendment, and voting against the Missouri Compromise. Samuel voted for the admission of Missouri as a slave state – an unpopular vote in the eyes of his New Jersey constituents.
Henry had sold his Basking Ridge farm to George Slater in 1818, and then retired from Congress when his term ended in 1821 at the age of 74. He lived out those last decades of his long life on at home with his daughter Sarah and her prominent physician husband Dr. Samuel S. Doty who lived nearby. Henry died in Basking Ridge on May 22, 1842, eleven years after his beloved wife. His name is listed on a plaque that bears the names of Revolutionary War soldiers buried in the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church graveyard. His grave stone is side by side with his wife’s, his son Lott, and other generations of relatives. His tombstone reads:
“In memory of Hon. Henry Southard who departed this life in the hope of a glorious immortality May 22, 1842 in the 95th year of his age. For 70 years he was a professed disciple of Christ and filled the office of ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church at Basking Ridge for upwards of 50 years with wisdom. He served his country during the war of the Revolution and in a civil capacity as Justice of the Peace, Judge of the Court and in the Legislative Councils of the State and Nation until beyond the age of three score and ten when he voluntarily retired from public life and maintained good profession in Holy conservation and Godliness. On such Thy second death hath no power.”
Southard’s son Isaac was born August 30, 1783, just months before Henry would rent the Ross Farm from Elias Boudinot. Educated at the Basking Ridge Classical School of the Presbyterian Church, Isaac married the Southard’s neighbor Mary W. Doty in 1807. Isaac and Mary would have 11 children. Isaac was a Colonel in the NJ State Militia during the war of 1812. He became a Justice of the Peace in Somerset County, and served as the County Clerk of Somerset for a decade before being elected in 1831 to the US House of Representatives as a member of the “Anti Jacksonian Party” which was formed by his outspoken brother Samuel who hated Andrew Jackson. Isaac served only one term, losing his bid for re-election in 1833. He then received positions as a NJ court examiner, then became the NJ State Treasurer. He died in Somerville NJ 1850, and is interred in the Old Cemetery there.
Henry and Sarah Southard’s 7th born son Samuel Lewis Southard had one of the most impressive political resumes in history. Born on the Ross Farm June 7, 1787 he was baptized as an infant at the Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church. He would graduate from the Reverend Robert Finley’s Basking Ridge Classical School and enter Princeton. He graduated Princeton in 1804 when he was just 17, and went into teaching in Mendham, NJ. He then took the post teaching at Taliaferro’s Virginia plantation, and trained for a law career in Fredericksburg, VA. He was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1809, returning to NJ in 1811. He would return briefly to VA to marry Rebecca Harrow on June 14, 1812.
Samuel established his law practice in Flemington, and soon became the Prosecuting Attorney for Hunterdon County – his first public position. He was elected to the NJ State Assembly in 1815, but by August he had resigned because he had been chosen as a NJ Supreme Court justice – the youngest in history. He took his seat on the court on October 31, 1815, and moved his growing family to Trenton. As a Supreme Court Justice in 1820, he took on the monumental task to prepare, publish, and annotate the Revised Statutes of the State of NJ for the first time. He also publish all decisions made by the court. The same year as a member of the electoral college of New Jersey, Samuel cast his vote for his personal friend, James Monroe.
After 5 years on the bench, he resigned when he was elected a US Senator – taking his seat in early 1821. His reputation for superior writing, oratory and organizational skills followed him to Washington. Just two years later, President James Monroe tapped him to become Secretary of the Navy in 1823. Samuel L. Southard became the very first cabinet member from NJ.
President James Monroe is seen discussing with his cabinet the policy later known as the Monroe Doctrine. From left to right, they are Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, Attorney General William Wirt, President Monroe (standing), Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Secretary of the Navy Samuel Southard, and Postmaster General John McLean. (Courtesy www.usdiplomacy.org)
Samuel Southard would serve as the US Secretary of the Navy for both the Monroe and John Quincy Adams administrations, leaving the post when Andrew Jackson became President in March 1829. Southard’s tenure with the Navy was hugely consequential.
As America’s stature in the world grew, Southard’s goals were to professionalize, modernize, and grow the Navy. He instituted detailed and fair criminal codes and ended the practice of flogging for sailor’s offenses. He took on officers such as Admiral David Porter who operated too independently – driving home the point that they took their direction from elected officials, He built America’s first dry-docks (Boston and Norfolk) for shipbuilding and repairs. He established new naval bases such as in Key West, where his efforts greatly curtailed West Indies piracy. He envisioned a role for the Navy in global exploration for both scientific discovery and to perform vital nautical navigation mapping and surveys. He built the first Naval Hospitals, and pushed for his idea that the Navy needed its own Academy to rival West Point for the training of officers. Samuel would also serve as Interim Secretary of the Treasury in 1825, and Interim Secretary of Way in 1828.
Those years as a member of the Presidential Cabinet were extremely difficult ones on the Southard family personally. Four of their seven children died during those 6 years. Rebecca was driven into deep depression, forcing even more responsibilities onto Samuel.
Southard had served briefly in the Senate with Andrew Jackson, and grew to loathe him both personally and for his purposeful disruptions of funding and support for programs and initiatives that Southard favored. He publically criticized Jackson’s positions, and reputation. He believed strongly that Congress was where true US authority lied, and hated the notion of executive tyranny. So when Jackson was elected President, Samuel Southard headed back to Trenton NJ as soon as the Adams administration ended to become the State Attorney General in 1829 – serving until he was elected the 10th Governor of New Jersey in 1832 as a member of the Whig Party. He was soon back in Washington, elected again to the US Senate – taking his seat there on March 4, 1833, and being a vociferous critic of President Jackson until Jackson’s term expired on 1837.
During his last decade, he was a leader of the Whig Party and attained national prominence as chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. As President pro tempore of the Senate, he was first in the presidential line of succession after the death of William Henry Harrison and the accession of Vice President John Tyler to the presidency. Samuel Southard’s was a much respected member of the US Senate until his death in Fredericksburg on June 26, 1842 – just one month after his father died.
Southard’s dream project as the Secretary of Navy was what he called The US Navy’s Exploratory Voyage. Southard had pushed hard for that project, and President Adams had unsuccessfully requested Congressional funding for in 1829. As Chair of the powerful Senate Committee on Naval Affairs Southard finally got Congressional appropriation for the voyage in 1836, but the Expedition would not launch until 1838. Southard had seen the expedition off from Hampton Roads Virginia in 1838 – 7 large ships of the line, 350 sailors, artists, cartographers, taxidermists, and scientists. The expedition was a rousing success going to all 7 continents – mapping over 300 islands (including Fiji and Hawaii), the west coast waters, proving that Antarctica was its own continent with mapping of 1,500 miles of coastline, and bringing 60,000 plants, seeds, and animals back to the US for study.
These samples became the core of the fledging Smithsonian Institution’s natural history collection. The Exploratory Voyage (now usually referred to as the Wilkes Expedition) returned – sailing into New York Harbor to much fanfare on June 10, 1842. One can hope that Southard heard the news of the expedition’s success – for he lay on his deathbed in Fredericksburg. For Southard’s important role in the important 4 year voyage, Cape Southard, and Mount Southard in Antarctica bear his name.
Outside of politics, Samuel L. Southard was intently driven to make money to support his family and his often ill and reclusive wife Rebecca (though she would outlive him by many years). Being an elected official was a far less taxing on his time than when he served as Secretary of the Navy, so his NJ law practiced flourished. He was a diligent and attentive attorney, and attracted some of NJ’s deep pocketed businesses as clients including the Society for Useful Manufacturers of Paterson (a company co-founded years earlier by Elias Boudinot), the Trenton Banking Company, the NJ Railroad and Transportation Company, and the Morris Canal and Banking Company (a company he was named President and Chief Counsel of).
He served as a Trustee at his alma mater in Princeton for 20 years, and as a trustee for Princeton Theological Seminary. He was a prominent member of the Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Colonization Society. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1832.
In the first century of the United States, there were no New Jersey politicians more influential than Samuel Lewis Southard. Upon his death in 1842, Congress honored the great man by having his body lay in state at the capitol, and both houses of Congress completely adjourned on the day of his funeral. He was buried in D.C.’s Congressional Cemetery next to 2 of his toddler daughters. In his eulogy to the House of Representatives, former President John Quincy Adams mourned his skillful friend’s death with these words:
“The soundness of his judgement, the candor of his disposition, the sweetness of his temper, and the adherence to his own sense of right were, to me, as a colleague, and a confidential assistant and advisor, a treasure beyond all price.”
His pastor at the Presbyterian Church of Trenton, Rev. J. W. Alexander wrote of Southard:
“Samuel L. Southard was a member of the congregation and a friend of all that promised its good. He was sprightly and versatile; he resembled a tropical tree of rapid growth. Few men ever attained earlier celebrity in New Jersey. This perhaps tended to produce a certain character which showed itself in good-natured egotism. He was a man of genius and eloquence, and made great impressions on first interview or by a single argument. He loved society and shone in company.”
In addition to the geological features in Antarctica named after Samuel Southard, the US Navy destroyer “USS Southard” (DD-207), (later DMS-10) was named in his honor. It was launched from the Philadelphia naval yard in 1917, and was scuttled in the waters off Okinawa in 1946. The public park just down the street from his birthplace on the Ross Farm in Basking Ridge is named jointly for Henry and Samuel Southard. Southard Place in Basking Ridge, Southard St. Trenton, Southard St. Paterson, and Southard St. in Key West FL leading down to the old naval base which Samuel Southard developed all celebrate the name Southard in honor of Samuel.
by Kate S | Sep 25, 2025 | History
Edmund “Ned” and Margaret Ross at the Ross Farm.
Photos courtesy of their family.
The last name represented in our “Friends of the Boudinot-Southard-Ross Estate” belongs to Edmund Burke Ross, and his wife of 50 years, Margaret Riker Haskell Ross. Both Edmund and Margaret came from wealthy families who led glamorous lives. Their attraction stemmed from their mutual love of the outdoors, sports, and a shared passion for all sorts of animals. They consciously chose to live simply on this farm that they loved so much, and to not surround themselves with too many trappings of luxury. Edmund was born to Leland Hamilton Ross and Parthenia Burke Ross in 1919, the youngest of 3 children of the couple. In 1914 Leland built the spectacular mansion he called “Parland House” on the foundation of “Cecilhurst”, the residence of Adolphe DeBary, on Madison Avenue in Madison. Parland House still stands – it is now the stately “Catholic Center for Evangelization at Bayley Ellard”. The couple divorced when Edmund was a young boy, and he was sent to prep schools, and nurtured by Scottish nannies. Ross, like his father Leland H. Ross, grandfather P. Sanford Ross, his uncles and father in-law Amory Haskell before him graduated from Princeton in 1941. Just like his wife’s father, Edmund played hockey on the Princeton University team. Graduating as America entered the World War, he was commissioned a Lieutenant and commanded Battery A of the 255th Artillery Battalion of the Third US Army in the European Theater of World War II – earning a Bronze Star in the process, and attaining the rank of Captain.
After the war, Edmund dutifully went off to work in the corporate world of NYC. During this time he had the great fortune of meeting Margaret Riker Haskell in Palm Beach FL where both families had homes.
Margaret Riker Haskell was descended from among the oldest families of America. Her 7th Great Grandfather Abraham Ryker got title to lands from Peter Stuyvesant in what is now Queens, NY. What are now Riker’s Island, LaGuardia Airport, and Citi Field were once all part of his enormous estate. The house he built in 1655 still stands just west of the LaGuardia runways (the oldest home in New York that is still a privately owned residence). Congressmen, Revolutionary War officers, sea captains, Judges, inventors, titans of industry, art collectors, and philanthropists are all in her lineage. Her grandfather on her mother Annette’s side, the wealthy Henry Morgan Tilford, was a close business associate of John D. Rockefeller. Tilford founded and ran Standard Oil of California (later Chevron). Her other grandfather, Jonathan Amory Haskell was a top executive at DuPont and General Motors and built one of New Jersey’s grand estates named Oak Hill in Monmouth County on hundreds acres. Haskell and his wife, Margaret Moore Riker Haskell, were so wealthy, that they had her ancestral Queens home (what they called the “Auld House”) moved by boat to the grounds of Oak Hill and preserved near their new mansion.
Her father, the Princeton educated Amory Lawrence Haskell maintained homes on 57th St. in Manhattan, Palm Beach, and the new Woodland Farms mansion in Middletown. His wife Annette Tilford Haskell had a lifelong horse obsession, and it bit him hard also. He was the President of the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden, the founder of Monmouth Park Race Track, and President of its Jockey Club. He almost single handedly got a NJ Constitutional Amendment passed in 1939 to allow horse race betting, and blue laws changed to allow racing on Sundays. The prestigious race Haskell Invitational is named in his honor.
Margaret Ross was educated at the Spence School in NYC, graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, and had her debutante ball at the Waldorf Astoria. Margaret and fellow horse lover Ned Ross courted and married in 1948
Edmund openly wished for a future in agriculture instead of business, and the couple longed for a more simple life that was free of the excesses of their upbringing. Ross left the NYC corporate world, and purchased a farm machinery dealership in Flemington, NJ. In 1952, the Rosses purchased the Basking Ridge farm property from Nathaniel Burgess. There the Rosses would happily remain for the rest of their lives, breeding thoroughbred horses, poultry, and raising lots of dogs who had the run of the farm.
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