Office History

A Rich History of Public Service

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The first convening of the District Court of New Jersey was held on December 22, 1789, at which time three attorneys were sworn in and Richard Stockton, then 25 years old, was commissioned as the first United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey.


Richard Stockton (1764-1828) by Christian Gullager

Stockton, nicknamed "the Duke," had come from a prominent family in New Jersey. His great-grandfather (also named Richard Stockton) purchased the property that became Morven (later the residence of several New Jersey governors) from William Penn in 1701. His father, perhaps the most famous Richard Stockton, signed the Declaration of Independence a little more than a decade before "the Duke" became the first "attorney of the district." Stockton spent most of his time dealing with cases arising from the maritime trade from nearby ports. These cases involved the collection of customs duties on goods brought through the New Jersey ports from foreign countries. When Stockton left office in 1791, he was widely considered the best attorney in the state of New Jersey. He became United States Senator for New Jersey in 1796, and he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1813.

Like Stockton, many United States Attorneys held significant posts in government before and after their tenure as United States Attorneys. William Sanford Pennington left the United States Attorney's Office in 1804 to become an Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, and in 1813 he became the governor of New Jersey. (His son, William Pennington, would later be the governor of New Jersey from 1837 to 1843.) From 1815 until his death in 1826, Pennington served as the United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey. (Until 1905, the District of New Jersey was served by only a single district judge.) Pennington had become well known for his courage during the Revolutionary War, when General Knox once spotted him under enemy fire loading and firing a cannon by himself, a task usually requiring the work of two or three people. The town of Pennington, New Jersey, is named for him.

Frederick Frelinghuysen became United States Attorney in 1801 having already distinguished himself in government service. He had served as a colonel in the Revolutionary War; as a delegate to the Continental Congress; and as a United States Senator from 1793 to 1796. After he left the Office of United States Attorney, Frelinguysen served as a member of the State general assembly. A number of Frelinghuysen's descendants served in government as well, including his son Theodore (1787-1862) and his grandson Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen (1817-1885), both of whom became United States Senators. His great-great-great-grandson, Peter Hood Ballantine Frelinghuysen, Jr., was a member of the House of Representatives from 1953 to 1975, and his great-great-great-great grandson, Rodney Frelinghuysen, was elected to the House of Representatives in 1995.

Joseph McIIvaine took office as the United States Attorney in 1804 and served for almost 20 years. Later, from 1823 until his death in 1826, he served in the United States Senate. McIIvaine's successor, Lucius Q.C. Elmer, had quite a career both before and after serving as United States Attorney from 1824 to 1829. Elmer had been a prosecuting attorney for the State and a member of the New Jersey Assembly, becoming Speaker of the House in 1823. He was elected to the United States Congress in 1843. He was not reelected, but he served as New Jersey's Attorney General from 1850 to 1852 and served as an Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1852 until his retirement in 1869.

The ninth United States Attorney, Garret Dorset Wall, had served in the War of 1812 and then become Quartermaster General for the State of New Jersey. He carried the title of "General" all of his life. As a member of the New Jersey Legislature, in 1829 he was selected by his peers to be governor. He became the only man appointed governor who declined to serve. Instead, he served as United States Attorney from 1829 to 1835. Then, from 1835 to 1841, he served as a United States Senator. Shortly after his death in 1850, Monmouth County's Wall Township was named after him.

On March 27, 1861, Anthony Q. Keasbey began the longest tenure of any United States Attorney in the District; he served continuously for 25 years, until 1886. The Keasbey section of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, was named for Keasbey and his brothers.

David O. Watkins, United States Attorney from 1900 to 1903, had earlier in his career been elected mayor of the City of Woodbury. At the time, he was only 24 years of age. In what may be another first, Watkins served as governor before becoming United States Attorney. In 1898, a set of odd circumstances brought Watkins to the governorship when both the elected governor and the President of the New Jersey Senate resigned while Watkins was Speaker of the House for the New Jersey Assembly. By succession, Watkins became the acting governor two years before becoming United States Attorney.

Other unusual events have occurred in the history of the United States Attorney's Office. The first United States Attorney, Richard Stockton (1789-1791), and the third, Lucius Horatio Stockton (1798-1801), were brothers. In more recent times, another pair of brothers have held the office, Raymond Del Tufo, Jr. (1954) and Robert J. Del Tufo (1977-1980).

In 1994, Faith S. Hochberg became the first woman to hold the Office of United States Attorney in New Jersey.  She left the office in 1999 to become one of the 17 United States district judges in New Jersey.  (The bench—and the U.S. Attorney's Office—had grown since 1905!) Hochberg was one of many United States Attorneys who also served as federal judges.  For example, Frederick B. Lacey and Herbert J. Stern served as district judges; Michael Chertoff served as a member of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit until being appointed Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Samuel Alito, Jr. served as a member of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for 15 years and then, beginning in January 2006, as the 110th United States Supreme Court Justice. Former New Jersey governor Christopher J. Christie is also a former United States Attorney for the District.

A number of Assistant U.S. Attorneys also went on to become members of the federal court, including Third Circuit Judges Maryanne Trump Barry, Michael A. Chagares, Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr., Patty Shwartz and Paul Matey; District Judges Jerome B. Simandle, Katharine S. Hayden, William J. Martini, Stanley R. Chesler, Renée M. Bumb, Noel L. Hillman, Kevin McNulty, and John Michael Vazquez; former, now-retired Chief District Judges John W. Bissell and Garrett E. Brown; and Magistrate Judges Michael A. Hammer, James B. Clark, III, Zahid N. Quraishi, Matthew J. Skahill, Jessica S. Allen, and André Espinosa. Stuart J. Rabner, the current Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, Lee A. Solomon and Walter F. Timpone, former Associate Justices of the New Jersey Supreme Court, and Richard J. Hughes, the only person in the history of New Jersey to serve as both governor and Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, were also former Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the District of New Jersey. On September 1, 2020, Fabiana Pierre-Louis, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of New Jersey, was sworn in as an Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court.  She is the first Black woman to serve on the Court.

Ten former U.S. Attorneys and Assistant U.S. Attorneys have served as New Jersey State Attorneys General: Grover C. Richman Jr., Robert Del Tufo, John Farmer Jr., Peter C. Harvey, Stuart Rabner, Paula T. Dow, Jeffrey S. Chiesa (who left the Attorney General’s job to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Sen. Frank S. Lautenberg), John Jay Hoffman (who served as acting Attorney General for three years), and the Former New Jersey Attorney General, Gurbir S. Grewal.

New Jersey United States Attorneys

Related information can be found on the web site of the Historical Society of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, www.njd.uscourts.gov, and the web site of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, http://www.njd.uscourts.gov/