Stephen Hopkins (143)

Stephen Hopkins (7 March 1707–13 July 1785) was a farmer, surveyor, and the Governor of Rhode Island, and a member of the American Philosophical Society via his 1768 election to the American Society. A Rhode Island native born to one of its first families, Stephen had little formal education but was married at age nineteen and won his first elected position at age twenty-four. Besides early local offices in his hometown of Scituate, Hopkins was returned to the Assembly of Rhode Island some fourteen times after 1732. In 1754 he represented the colony at the Albany Congress and endorsed its Plan of Union, and from 1755 onward, after his widowerhood and remarriage, Hopkins became a Quaker and accelerated his political ascent. His gubernatorial jockeying with Samuel Ward between 1757 and 1768 led to his rejoining the General Assembly (1770–75) and becoming the Chief Justice of the Superior Court (1773–75). A restless essayist, he sharpened his politics and rose to renown in the Providence Gazette: among his many entries was a long-form serialized history of Rhode Island that accentuated the influence of the Narragansett. As a trustee and the Chancellor of the College of Rhode Island from 1764 until his death, Hopkins nurtured and trumpeted the capacities of colonials as important commercial partners in the empire. Unsurprisingly, then, Hopkins was elected to the Continental Congress in 1774–79, where he won over other delegates with his sociability and learning before signing the Declaration of Independence. He effectively resigned owing to health in September 1776 but voters returned him for three more years. His renown as a broadly read and deeply thoughtful advocate of American liberty lived on well past his death in Providence in 1785. (PI)