When the rush of service settles, the wood burning hearth shimmers with end-of-night embers, and overnight guests tuck under soft linens, Stockton Inn hums with stories past and present.
Through the centuries, Stockton Inn has remained a symbol of the Delaware River Valley’s significance in American history and a mainstay of the community’s evolution in arts, culture, and culinary excellence. During the last 300 years, the inn has taken on many iterations. Today, it is a refined river town retreat and restaurant, helmed by a team of Bucks County area natives, Chef Bob Truitt and Managing Director Anthony Rudolf, who returned to their roots after working at Michelin-starred and James Beard Award-winning restaurants around the world.
To chronicle the timeline of the inn, Curated compiled research, records, newspaper articles, and – most importantly – stories from the people and families who have enjoyed Stockton Inn year after year, generation after generation, century after century.
“It’s a landmark. It’s the first building you see when you cross the bridge from Pennsylvania. It had been closed for a while which I found very disturbing and I’m delighted to see it brought back to life,” historian Marfy Goodspeed, who specializes in the area surrounding Hunterdon County, New Jersey, told Curated.
Purchased in 1710 as private farmland by John Reading for a family home, Stockton Inn existed before the town was even named Stockton. The snow-covered street it sits on today is said to have once been imprinted by the footsteps of Continental soldiers traversing to Howell’s Ferry where they boarded boats to cross the Delaware River one triumphant Christmas night.
By the 1830s, Asher Johnson (of Johnson & Johnson) bought the lot and built it into a tavern coined “the farmer’s bar.” Here, the inn and tavern served neighbors, travelers, and traders who came with the construction of the D&R Canal, followed by the development of the railroad.
Lore points to the inn as a stopping point on the Underground Railroad, though documented proof is evasive due to the freedom trail’s illegality under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The inn’s proximity to the Delaware River – a major natural boundary for those crossing from Pennsylvania (a free state) into New Jersey (a “gateway” state) – gives this oral history plausibility.
Also etched into the past, hidden in passageways beneath the tavern floorboards, was a lively speakeasy. By around 1915, a local Lambertville hotelier named Enos Weiss bought the inn and, by 1922 it was acquired by his daughter, Elisabeth Colligan – who called in Colligan’s Stockton Inn. Prohibition didn’t put a stop to her business, as the inn became famous for serving up “Wikecheoke Apple Jack” no matter how dry the law got.
Throughout the 1920s and 30s, Colligan’s became a hotspot for socialites, artists, authors, and musicians. Literary greats like F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Algonquin Roundtable inspired each other over their usual orders weekend after weekend – taking a respite from Manhattan’s frenetic buzz with countryside quiet and a little revelry.
The renowned band leader Paul Whiteman, also known as “The King of Jazz,” lived on a neighboring farm and held a regular table in the tavern. Credited with launching the singing career of Bing Crosby in 1926, Whiteman was known for having glamorous parties often. Perhaps that’s what drew other creatives and composers to the area. The wishing well, which still welcomes guests into the boutique hotel’s main entrance today, became the inspiration for Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s 1936 Broadway song, “There’s a Small Hotel,” recorded by greats like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.
Stockton Inn was the media headquarters during the Lindbergh kidnapping trail in Hunterdon County. Its carriage house offered Margaret Mitchell, who wrote “Gone With the Wind” over a decade beginning in 1926, a quiet place to write. And Jackie Kennedy Onassis enjoyed a stay or two.
The Colligan family ran the inn as an eclectic watering hole and weekender haunt for the better part of the 20th century, until selling in the 1980s when it was renamed The Stockton Inn. It continued to operate until 2014 when it shuttered unexpectedly for the first time in centuries.
The inn sat empty for eight years as townspeople watched an icon fall into disrepair. In 2022, a local couple purchased the property and poured their passion into a restoration that, from bones to beams, filled the space with grace and warmth. In 2024, Stockton Inn was reanimated with locals from Stockton, Lambertville, New Hope, and Frenchtown, once again immersed in joy in the restaurant’s tavern, terrace and dining room – as well as travelers seeking a refined countryside retreat in the inn’s nine bespoke guest rooms.
“Old buildings represent the past,” Goodspeed said. “It’s a part of belonging to a place that has been home to many others. Where we live becomes more meaningful if we know about the people before us.”
