Stephen Hopkins (1707 - 1785)

Born in the northern part of Providence that is now Scituate on March 7, 1707, the second of nine children of William and Ruth (Wilkinson) Hopkins, Stephen Hopkins' story helps us to understand how the diverse American colonies came together to revolt against the British Empire in the 1770s. Lacking in formal education, but rigorously self-educated with help from his wealthy and well-connected extended family, Hopkins started young in politics, appointed as a justice of the peace at age 23 and representing the newly incorporated town of Scituate and then Providence in the General Assembly during the 1730s. He also worked as a surveyor in his youth and is credited with greatly improving the layout and condition of the roads in Providence. He would be elected speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives seven times, serve nine highly contentious terms as governor, and eleven years as chief justice. A successful shipping merchant, working with his brother Esek as a shipbuilder and owner beginning in 1740, and the first chancellor of Rhode Island College (now Brown University), he also represented Rhode Island at both Continental Congresses of the 1770s and signed the Declaration of Independence.

Stephen Hopkins married Sarah Scott Hopkins in 1726. They had seven children together, but only five survived to maturity. Over the course of the year 1753, two of their sons and Sarah died, leaving Stephen and the three remaining children. Stephen Hopkins and Anna Smith, widow of Benjamin Smith, were wed on January 2, 1755. She brought two children of her own into the house that Hopkins had built on Town Street (now South Main Street), which stands today on Hopkins Street, and bore three more after marrying Hopkins. Hopkins’ son George later married Anna’s daughter, Ruth Smith, in 1773.

In 1754, Hopkins represented Rhode Island at the Albany Congress, where he supported Benjamin Franklin’s plan for colonial union. Few others shared his enthusiasm at that time, but Hopkins believed that cooperation between the colonies, especially in the formation of a colonial navy, would be wise. In the 1760s, after the conclusion of theSeven Years (or French and Indian) War, the British imposed newly oppressive laws on the colonies. After parliament’s passage of the Sugar Act, Governor Hopkins contributed the influential pamphlet “The Rights of the Colonies Examined” in 1764, printed by the Goddards in Providence and distributed throughout the colonies. He argued that Great Britain only hurt itself by denying the colonists enough profit from the molasses trade to purchase British goods, and that the colonies themselves were better suited to raise revenues through taxation. He concluded that parliament’s “supreme and overruling authority” was limited to regulation of the British Empire and did not extend into the internal affairs of the colonies. As British subjects, the colonists were to be governed only by laws to “which they themselves have in some way consented.” However, despite his arguments for freedom and self-determination, Hopkins, like many of the so-called Founding Fathers, failed to free all of his slaves (though his 1760 will contained instructions for their care after his death). As his fellow Quakers adopted the anti-slavery position by the 1770s, the Providence Meeting barred Hopkins for his refusal to manumit—though he did write legislation that banned the continued importation of slaves into Rhode Island in 1774, and thus was responsible for one of the first American anti-slavery laws.

During the 1750s and 1760s, Rhode Island politics was defined by the battles between factions led by Governor Hopkins and Governor Richard Ward. Hopkins was backed by wealthy Providence merchant families like the Browns while Ward’s support came from Newport and the Greene family of Warwick and southern Rhode Island. The contest concerned less the big political issues of the day (levying taxes to pay off debt and issuing paper currency) and more who controlled the governor’s office for purposes of patronage. In particular, privateering commissions and “flags of truce,” issued by the governor, were extraordinarily lucrative for Rhode Island shipping merchants.

Continued disagreement between the colonies and Great Britain led to violence in the 1770s, and eventually to the Declaration of Independence and war. When some of his acquaintances boarded and burned the British vessel Gaspee in 1772, Justice Hopkins refused to sign a court order to arrest or extradite the perpetrators and thus limited the ability of the British authorities to respond forcefully to the incident. Similarly, when a vessel owned by Boston’s John Hancock was confiscated by British authorities, brought to Newport, and then retaken and burned by an American mob, Justice Hopkins refused to issue arrest warrants or allow anyone else to do so. As war drew nearer, Hopkins served as chairman of the Continental Congress's Naval Committee, his expertise as a shipping merchant preparing him for the duty of building the original American navy. He secured the appointment of his brother Esek as the navy’s first admiral. Now nearly seventy years old, Hopkins had long suffered from palsy, and said as he signed the Declaration in 1776, “My hand trembles but my heart does not.” John Adams later wrote that during those difficult months in Philadelphia, Hopkins “ kept us all alive” with his wit and humor. Adams continued, “Upon Business his Experience and judgment were very Usefull. But when the Business of the Evening was over, he kept Us in Conversation till Eleven and sometimes twelve O Clock. His Custom was to drink nothing all day nor till Eight O Clock, in the Evening, and then his Beveredge was Jamaica Spirit and Water. It gave him Wit, Humour, Anecdotes, Science and Learning. He had read Greek, Roman and British History, and was familiar with English Poetry… And the flow of his Soul made all his reading our own, and seemed to bring to recollection in all of Us all We had ever read.” After declaring independence from Great Britain, Hopkins served on the Committee of Thirteen that drafted the Articles of Confederation.

Limited by illness during the ensuing years of war, Hopkins hosted General Washington when he came to Rhode Island to plan what would be the war’s final campaign in Virginia with Count Rochambeau. Moses Brown was with Hopkins when Washington, alone, came to visit, and he later wrote that he “sat some time, viewing the simple, friendly, and pleasant manner” in which the two men “conversed with each other on a number of subjects.” Hopkins’ second wife, Anna, died in 1782 and joined his first wife in the North Burial Ground. Upon Hopkins’ death in July 1785, "A vast assemblage of persons, consisting of judges of the courts, the president, professors and students of the college, together with the citizens of the town, and inhabitants of the state, followed the remains of this eminent man to his resting place in the grave." Hopkins’ gravestone in the North Burial Ground, erected by the general assembly, affirmed his inclusion in the “first rank of statesmen and patriots.” The monument’s north side contains the following lines:

Here lies the man in fateful hour,

Who boldly stemm’d tyrannic pow’r.

And held his hand in that decree,

which bade America BE FREE!

Further Reading

Conley, Patrick. Rhode Island’s Founders: From Settlement to Statehood. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2010.

Gaspee Days Committee, Gaspee Virtual Archives: http://gaspee.org/StephenHopkins.htm

Lovejoy, David S. Rhode Island Politics and the American Revolution, 1760-1776. Providence: Brown University Press, 1958.

Rappleye, Charles. Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

Thompson, Mack E. “The Ward-Hopkins Controversy and the American Revolution in Rhode Island: An Interpretation,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Jul., 1959), pp. 363-375.