Betsey Stockton was born to an enslaved mother in Princeton, New Jersey around 1798. She took her last name – Stockton – from the first man who owned her family. However, at a young age, Betsey was given to Robert’s daughter, Elizabeth Green, who was the wife of a Presbyterian minister.

Under Elizabeth and Robert’s tutelage, Betsey was not only raised in the faith but also, offered a rigorous classical education alongside the Green children. Betsey later became a communing member of Princeton’s First Presbyterian Church.

Before conversion, Betsey was said to be a rambunctious, precocious young woman. After salvation, she poured all that energy into a zeal for the lost. She would start a Sabbath school for the Black children of Princeton before answering the Lord’s call to become a missionary to the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii). She set sail with Charles and Harriet Stewart in 1822.

She was the first single American woman to be commissioned as an overseas missionary. While in Maui, she began the first school for “commoners.”” Upon her return, she would continue to be involved in education for the rest of her life, both in Sabbath schools, as well as in the Stewart home. She would go on to become one of the founding members of the first Black presbyterian church in Princeton and would be an active parishioner until her death in 1865.