Why choose Stephen Hopkins to write about RI and the beginning of revolution in the colonies? How did he “fit in” among the other 55 well educated, wealthy white men with political and economic interests in colonial Independence and who signed on to a Declaration of Independence and then committed the 13 colonies to that path.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, In light of the ongoing military operations in Boston and elsewhere in early 1775, it was pretty obvious what loosing this attempt would mean for those calling themselves Patriots. Too us looking back it seems obvious what would happen - the result of their risk taking looked anything but obvious to them.
I could have chosen William Ellery, the younger man who also signed on behalf of RI. And I will mention him at the end in fairness, as his risks were just as great as anyone else signing the Declaration. But it is the span of Stephen Hopkins life time, 1707 to 1785, that marks the time that RI went from being a tiny thorn in the side of England to being a larger thorn in the side of the Continental Congress. Where it grew from a tiny colony barely surviving to a much larger and prosperous colony and then state. No change in actual size.
Trumbull’s “Signing of the Declaration of Independence.”
From 1742 to after his death in 1785, Hopkins house faced onto Towne Street (now South Main Street). Some of the warehouses and ships at wharfs ran along the East side of the Providence River. Including some of his own.
The Stephen Hopkins House at its present location, Providence, Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins and Trumbull’s painting of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence created around 1814. Trumbull’s painting was originally said to have put Stephen Hopkins in the back row standing up with the Quaker style hat on, since he was known to be a Quaker. But, it turns out, in was discovered in the late 1970’s that a few errors had originally been made in identifying the men in the picture. The sketch Trumbull made in 1791 was a sketch of Rufus, Hopkins oldest surviving son who closely resembled Hopkins. . It is a tiny 3 1/8” X 5”. Done 6 years after Stephen Hopkins death. It is now recognized that Hopkins is actually seated in the front row. A small point, but sometimes you have to change the “story of your history” if you discover facts that objectively or substantially change the story. That can be a hard thing for people to do. It can change the nature of the story being told. The painting is symbolism not reality and was designed to be part of the American creation story. America wanted such a glorious story to match those created by European nations. So they created one. Occasionally accurate, other times, not so much. Also like other countries have done.
Of the 47 men portrayed on that Trumbull canvas only 42 actually signed the Declaration. 5 are considered important to the process but were not signers. 14 signers are not painted at all. The date Trumbull’s painting does in fact depict is June 28, 1776 when a draft of the Declaration of Independence was reviewed by the entire Congress.
That time frame takes us to the end of what has come to be called the French and Indian War. In 1754 representatives from most British colonies in North America had come together in Albany, NY to discuss placing British North America under a more centralized government. To cooperate at a minimum, militarily
Prior to the Albany Congress, a number of colonial officials, including Benjamin Franklin, had formulated and published several tentative plans for centralizing the colonial governments of North America. Imperial officials in England thought this would bring the colonies under closer authority and supervision, while colonists saw the need to organize and defend their common interests. Upon hearing of the Albany Congress, Franklin printed in his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, the political cartoon "Join or Die.” which illustrated the importance of union by comparing the colonies to pieces of a snake’s body. Useless if separated into pieces.
The Albany Congress began on June 19, 1754, and the delegates, including Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island, voted unanimously to discuss the possibility of union on June 24…[and] they adopted a final version on July 10.
This was the starting point of creating documents, ideas, conversations about self-government within the colonies. The Articles of Confederation which governed the colonies until the Constitution was adopted in 1787 had no executive branch. Anyone want to guess who the 1st “president” of the US colonies was on July 4, 1776? It’s a trick question. The governing body of joined colonies at this time was the Continental Congress, whose President in July of 1776 was John Hancock. Hence his well-placed and unavoidable signature on the Declaration.
I just want to spend a few more minutes on this because much of the language and ideas from this Albany Congress end up in the Articles of Confederation - written November 1777. The plan proposed the union of all the British colonies except for Georgia and Delaware - who had zero interest. The colonial governments would select a "Grand Council," and the British Government would appoint a "president General." These two branches of the unified government would regulate colonial-Indian relations and also resolve territorial disputes between the colonies. Because “royal colonial governors” often overrode colonial legislatures and pursue unpopular policies, the Albany Plan gave the Grand Council greater relative authority. The plan also allowed the new government to levy taxes for its own support. [This last item would remain a sticking point until the Constitution was adopted granting the government power to levy taxes.]
Stephen Hopkins was an ardent supporter of this plan. He and Franklin became good friends. But the plan did not become a reality. The Albany Plan was a means to reform colonial-imperial relations and to recognize that the colonies collectively shared certain common interests - mostly military but also fair trade among themselves and in competition with others. But colonial legislatures and non-imperially appointed governors (like RI) had their own fears of losing power, territory, and commerce, both to other colonies and to the British Parliament. That insured the Albany Plan’s temporary failure. These issues would bubble to the surface again in 1763 when England’s bill came due for the war.
This plan served as a model for future attempts at union between the colonies, both in 1776 and again in 1787. it created political relationships between most of the colonies that hadn’t existed before; it wanted to establish a division between the executive and legislative branches of government. And, it conceived of the British colonies of mainland North America as a collective unit, separate not only from the mother country, but also from the other British colonies in the West Indies and elsewhere. In other words, a separate nation. It was a seed planted in the colonies that would grow as Britain continued to fumble their relationship with the NA colonies.
Lithograph of Stephen Hopkins (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
The Rights of Colonies Examined by Stephen Hopkins was the first pamphlet printed in Providence by William Goddard on paper from the first paper mill in Providence in 1764. Both businesses had been encouraged by Hopkins and Goddard was happy to produce his political document. In general it criticized the British Parliament and their Stamp Act. There are many similar writings from the 1763 and 1764 by colonies governors etc. Stephen Hopkin’s writing helped galvanize a part of the colonial population wavering between some type of connection with Great Britain and complete independence.
Paul Campbell in his book from 1974, Stephen Hopkins and the Evolution of Colonial Consensus states:
“In the colony of RI one man, Stephen Hopkins, through his journalistic foray and particularly through his ideological tract, The Rights of Colonies Examined, was primarily responsible for the growth of an anti-British consensus…. In his expert use of the press he not only served to organize but also to educate public opinion …. Hopkins had [been an] early [1754] exponent of colonial cooperation…. And his easy access to the public through the Providence Gazette after 1762 enabled him to popularize his advanced views.”
As John Adams had written 150 years earlier, it was the “radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, [that were] the real American Revolution.” The fighting came later. Given Hopkins background and political experience it certainly made sense for him to be appointed to represent RI at these newly former Continental Congresses.
Let me tell you a little bit about the man who ended up Philadelphia in 1776. Born in 1707 in Providence and moved to what is now Scituate as a very young boy. His primary education was from his Quaker mother, and an uncle who taught him surveying. In fact he continued earning money as a surveyor until throughout his life. There were essentially no regular schools in RI. Very few books that were seldom available existed. In spite of that he became so well read that his company was sought out at the 1776 convention. He bought and donated many books to what would be Providence’s first lending library (not a pubic library). It’s eventual successor in the Athenaum in Providence, RI
John Adams knew him well, as did Franklin - the only older delegate at the convention in 1776. Adams has remarked on “the disciplined and erudite nature of [Hopkin’s] character.” Despite his lack of formal education, Adams has noted that Hopkins “read Greek, Roman [?Latin], and British history as well as the poetry of Milton and Pope.”
He married Sarah Scott (both aged 19) and together had 7 children. As was common at that time, of those 7, only five survived into adulthood. Of the five males, only one, the oldest Rufus, survived him, the other 4 died in their various lines of work on the sea. Death was a constant companion at that time. For example, in just one year, 1753 between April and September of that year, his son John died of smallpox off the coast of Spain; their youngest son Sylvanus was wrecked on the shores of a Cape Breton Island and killed by Indians upon reaching shore; and his wife Sarah died in 1753 at 46 years of age. Hopkins later remarried a Quaker Anne Smith but had no further children. He became a Quaker as well.
Later in life Hopkins developed what we would probably today call Parkinson’s Disease. As he went to up to sign the Declaration he said to some of the others around him as he held his right hand with his left, “My hand may tremble but my heart does not.” William Ellery was right behind him and watched all the others sign.
Like so many others in the American Colonies at the time, the paradox of wanting Liberty for yourself and those like you, but enslaving others for their personal benefit existed in Stephen Hopkins as well. During his lifetime he enslaved at least 9 black people - men, women, and children. He manumitted one of them in 1772 - a man named St. Jago, who was about 33 years old and had been enslaved since infancy. It appears he often had earned money for Hopkins working at times as a sailor. That’s what he did as a freedman. He survived and has heirs in America today.
Hopkins was ultimately asked to leave his Quaker Meeting house because he wouldn’t free the last of his enslaved people. Fibbo or Phoebe was an woman who remained enslaved by him until his death - at which time any enslaved he still had were to be freed.
Like most enslaved in RI at the time, they were primarily used as domestic servants. But regardless of the work performed, it was partly their unpaid labor effort thad enabled men like Stephen Hopkins to have the time to pursue activities beyond the daily stresses of staying alive.
He clearly loved liberty and abhorred slavery - but only in regard to himself and other men like himself. The Liberty being sought in the Revolution was wide open and glorious - if you met the criteria. Even Abigail Adams thought there men might cut the ladies some slack. That’s how out of control things were! Hopkins was willing to die in support of a fight for independence. It was his work to help get the Gradual Emancipation of 1784 passed one year before he died that showed that some in RI had taken their blinders off on the issue of slavery. Sadly, it did nothing to remove the blinders of discrimination and racism. I’m not aware of any significant white leaders in the colonies at this time who, abolitionist or not, felt there was equality between races. Slavery might be abhorrent to them but that didn’t mean blacks were “capable” of or “allowed” to participate equally in the new American society.
Portrait of William Ellery by H.B. Ball Courtesy of Wikipedia
Let’s take a look at the other guy from RI who signed the Declaration … William Ellery. Born in Newport, Rhode Island on 22 December 1727, he died in 1820. He was 48 when signing the Declaration of Independence. He was the generation behind Hopkins.
Graduate of Harvard University, he was a merchant, a customs collector, clerk of the RI General Assembly, clerk of the court of common pleas, and at 40 a lawyer. Chosen to represent RI at the Second Continental Congress, he joined Stephen Hopkins in Philadelphia in May of 1776. He watched all available representatives as they signed the Declaration on August 2, 1776 and wrote later:
“I was determined to see how they all looked as they signed what might be their death warrant. I placed myself beside the secretary Charles Thomson and eyed each closely as he affixed his name to the document. Undaunted resolution was displayed in every countenance.”
Like Hopkins, William Ellery’s family had come to the Massachusett colony in the mid-1600’s and became well off merchants and political figures (both usually went hand in hand - some things never change). His father went to Harvard and so did he, at the age of 16. (Remember that number). He was married twice. His first wife died after bearing him 7 children - five of whom survived into adulthood. His second wife bore him 10 more - only two of which survived into adulthood. Like most families of the time - he was well acquainted with grief.
In 1764, Ellery was one of the founders of Rhode Island College and one of its incorporators. As was the older Stephen Hopkins. Over the course of a hundred years or so, both their families had become quite prominent in RI. Ellery helped lead a “riotous march” of Rhode Islanders through Providence in resistance to the Stamp Act in 1765, and supported efforts against the Intolerable Acts of 1767. He felt strongly that local bodies in each colony should manage their own internal affairs without the intrusions of British governmental interference from 3,000 miles away.
Samuel Ward, the other RI delegate along with Stephen Hopkins, died in March 1776 of smallpox. William Ellery was chosen to replace Ward and did beginning 16 May, 1776. Ellery just happened to be in the right place at the right moment to get his trip to Philadelphia.
Ellery voted for the Resolution for Independence on 2 July, and the Declaration on 4 July 1776. Ellery was present to sign the engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence on 2 August 1776 along with most of the other signers. In 1778 he signed the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States. Attending Congress for such an extended period took a toll on his financial resources. He rode on horseback rather than a carriage. On one trip home he traveled with John and Samuel Adams, and stayed at an inn where all three dined on bread and butter. He wrote this about his traveling experiences: “Had I announced myself as a member of Congress, who would have believed me? Setting aside my spectacles, there is, I am sure, no dignity in my person or appearance.”
During the British occupation of Newport Ellery’s dwelling house was burned and damaged other property of his in the area. He was one of over 30 signers to the Declaration that either fought in the military/militia, served Patriot governments in the colonies, or lost family/property as a result of the fighting.
In 1790, with the organization of the country under the new Constitution, President Washington appointed William Ellery as Collector of Customs for the Newport District, a post he retained through all the changes of national administrations until his death thirty years later. William Ellery, sired seventeen children with two wives. He survived both wives, and served the Federal Government under eight administrations and five Presidents, died at his home in Newport in 1820. He was 92 years old, one of only three signers who lived into his 90s.
Mr. Ellery would later write this rather humble statement in summing up his career:
“I have been a clerk of the court, a quack lawyer, a member of Congress, one of the lords of the Admiralty, a judge, a loan officer, and finally a Collector of the customs and thus, not without great difficulty, but as honestly, thank God, as most men, I have got through the journey of a varied and sometimes anxious life”