Robert Field Stockton (20 August 1795-7 October 1866) was a US Navy commodore who served as military governor of California from 29 July 1846 to 16 January 1847, succeeding John D. Sloat and preceding Stephen W. Kearny, and a US Senator from New Jersey (D) from 4 March 1851 to 10 January 1853, succeeding William L. Dayton and preceding John Renshaw Thomson.
Biography[]
Robert Field Stockton was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1795, the son of US Senator Richard Stockton. He became a midshipman in the US Navy in 1811, and he served in the US Navy during the War of 1812, also being the first naval officer to act against the Atlantic slave trade, and capturing several slave ships. During the late 1820s and in the 1830s, he was devoted to business affairs in New Jersey, and he purchased the property of Sea Girt in 1835. In 1838, he resumed active naval service as a captain, and he served in the Mexican-American War as a commodore. On 11 August 1846, Stockton captured Los Angeles, and the city would change hands after several skirmishes with the Mexican Army, finally settling in American control in January 1847. He resigned from the Navy in May 1850 and served in the US Senate from 1851 to 1853, and he sponsored a bill to abolish flogging as a naval punishment; he resigned to serve as President of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company. He died in 1866.