If you ask almost anyone, I am sure that they would tell you that their favorite day of the week is Saturday. For me however, my favorite day of the week is Wednesday, hump day, or as I like to call it, home day! Wednesday's are my scheduled day off from work, and the day that I get to stay home with my two amazing munchkins and have fun!
So last Wednesday we were home as usual, we had played some games, watched some TV, eaten lunch and the kids had both taken naps and we were all bored. We had been inside all day, so I decided we needed to get out. I got the munchkins into their coats, hats and car seats and we went out on our own mini Tomb Tour. I live just outside of Princeton in a township called Hamilton, so I thought I would drive out to Princeton and see if I could visit the resting places of some signers of the Declaration of Independence. So we drove the Victory Trail (the route Washington took from Trenton to Princeton in the early morning of January 2, 1775). Our first stop was at the Stony Brook Meeting House, and it was here that I realized the flaw in my plan.
In the past week, we have had a large amount of snow and places like churchyards, cemeteries are not high traffic areas and out of respect, no one is going to shovel or plow them. The Stony Brook Graveyard was no exception and was covered in at least 2 inches of snow that had slightly melted and refrozen into a perfect ice sheet that sparkled like diamonds in the late day sun. However, this also meant I could not enter the graveyard, and so I will have to leave Richard Stockton for another day.
Richard Stockton is a very interesting man, especially if you believe all those "The Price They Paid" emails we all receive around the Fourth of July. According to that fanciful myth "Five signers were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they died"(1) Wow, these men must be all be martyrs right? Well it is true that five signers were captured during the entire time of the Revolution, none of these men however died while British prisioner. Richard Stockton is the only signer who was taken as a prisoner because he was signer. He was captured by Loyalist Militants while staying with friends in monmouth County, and taken to Perth Amboy where he was transferred to New York's Provost Jail. (Kiernan Page 94) Stockton was treated badly but he was not tortured, he was forced to recant the Declaration and sign a Loyalty Oath to the King. He later recanted the King's Oath and signed a Loyalty Oath in front of the Continental Congress on December, 1777. Poor Richard did not live out the revolution and died of cancer in 1781. (Kiernan Page 95)
So back to me, and my two kids at the Stony Brook Meeting House, we left here, drove past the Clark House and the Princeton Battlefield and into Princeton, our destination, the Princeton Cemetery. And this is where I will leave this for now. As usual, Like our Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/tombtours, Follow Us on Twitter and Instagram @tombtours and of course email me any time at tombtours@gmail.com.
Referenced
1. www.snopes.com/history/american/pricepaid.asp
Kiernan, Denise, and Joseph Agnese. Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia: Quirk Book, 2009. Print.
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