Stephen Hopkins

Stephen Hopkins (7 March 1707 – 13 July 1785) is a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a Chief Justice on the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

From a prominent Rhode Island family, Hopkins is a grandson of William Hopkins who serves the colony for 40 years as Deputy, Assistant, Speaker of the House of Deputies, and Major.

His great grandfather, Thomas Hopkins, is an original settler of Providence, sailing from England in 1635 with his first cousin, Benedict Arnold, who becomes the first governor of the Rhode Island colony under the Royal Charter of 1663.

As a child, Stephen Hopkins had been a voracious reader, becoming a serious student of the sciences, mathematics, and literature.

He becomes a surveyor and astronomer, and is involved in taking measurements during the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun.

Hopkins begins his public service at the early age of 23 as a justice of the peace in the newly established town of Scituate, Rhode Island.

He soon becomes a justice of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, while also serving at times as the Speaker of the House of Deputies and President of the Scituate Town Council.

While active in civic affairs, he also is part owner of an iron foundry and is a successful merchant who is portrayed in John Greenwood's 1750s satirical painting, Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam.

In May 1747, Hopkins is appointed as a justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and in 1751 becomes the third Chief Justice of this body.

In 1755, he is elected to his first term as governor of the colony, and serveds a total of nine of the next 15 years in this capacity.

One of the most contentious political issues of his day is the use of paper money versus hard currency.

His bitter political rival Samuel Ward championshard currency, whereas Hopkins advocates the use of paper money.

The rivalry between the two men becomes so heated that Hopkins sues Ward for £40,000, but loses the case and has to pay costs.

By the mid-1760s, the contention between the two men beomes a serious distraction to the government of the colony, and realizing this they attempt to placate each other, but initially without success.

Ultimately, in 1768, both agree to not run for office, and Josias Lyndon is elected governor of the colony as a compromise candidate.

In 1770, Hopkins once again becomes Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and during this tenure becomes a principal player in the colony's handling of the 1772 Gaspee Affair, when a group of irate Rhode Island citizens board a British revenue vessel, and burn it to the waterline.

In 1774, he is given an additional important responsibility as one of Rhode Island's two delegates to the First Continental Congress, Samuel Ward being the other.

Hopkins had become well known in the 13 colonies ten years earlier when he published a pamphlet entitled "The Rights of Colonies Examined," which was critical of British Parliament and its taxation policies.

In the summer of 1776, with worsening palsy in his hands, Hopkins signs the Declaration of Independence while holding his right hand with his left, saying, "my hand trembles, but my heart does not."

He serves in the Continental Congress until September 1776 when failing health forces him to resign.

A strong backer of the College of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (later named Brown University), Hopkins is one of the school's most ardent supporters, and becomes the institution's first chancellor.

He dies in Providence in 1785 at the age of 78, and is buried in the North Burial Ground there.

Hopkins has been called Rhode Island's greatest statesman.

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