Annis Boudinot Stockton – “To General Washington”

Annis Boudinot was born in 1736 to a Pennsylvania silversmith named Elias Boudinot. When the family moved to New Jersey in 1750, they eventually settled in Princeton where Annis befriended Esther Burr, wife of Aaron Burr, Sr. and daughter of Jonathan Edwards, as well as many members of the Stockton family. She married Richard Stockton sometime in 1757-58 who became a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court and was a Princeton-based signer of the Declaration of Independence. The family home was built in the 1750s and subsequently rebuilt after a fire in 1758, given the name Morven by Annis, meaning “Big Hill” in Gaelic. The property is now Morven Museum and Garden.

Annis Boudinot Stockton was a prolific poet and letter-writer. The verse depicted on this tile comes from a letter written by her to General George Washington on August 26, 1783.

Say, can a female voice an audience gain

And Stop a moment thy triumphal Car

And will thou listen to a peaceful Strain:

Unskill’d to paint the horrid Scenes of war

Tho’ oft the muse with rapture heard thy name

And placed thee foremost on the Sacred Scroll,

With patriots who had gain’d Eternal fame,

By wondrous deeds that penetrate the soul

Yet what is glory what are martial deeds

Unpurified at virtue’s awful Shrine

And oft remorse a glorious day Succeeds

The motive only Stamps the deed divine