Hopkins

commanded by his father. After the capture of
the Island of New Providence the squadron re-
turned north and, near Block Island, fell in with
the British ship Glasgow. The Cabot, being in
the lead, received most of the enemy's fire and
had four men killed and seven wounded, includ-
ing Hopkins, who was badly hurt. The Glasgow
escaped In the list of captains of the Conti-
nental navy, as established by Congress on Oct.
10, 1776, Hopkins is number thirteen (Peter
Force, American Archives, 5 sen, vol. II, 1851,
col. 1394). In 1777 he was appointed to com-
mand the new frigate Warren, which was block-
aded in the Providence River by the British fleet,
but escaped on a bitter cold night early in March
1778, took two prizes, then put into Boston, and
later in the year went to sea again. In 1779 he
was in command of a squadron, comprising the
Warren, Queen of France, and Ranger, which
sailed from Boston in March on a successful
cruise of about six weeks off the Virginia capes.
They took the New York privateer schooner
Hibernia and captured seven out of a fleet of
nine sail, including the 20-gun ship Jason with
several British army officers on board. Hopkins
brought his prizes to Boston and Portsmouth,
and both the Jason and Hibernia became suc-
cessful American privateers. On this cruise Hop-
kins showed qualities of a capable officer. The
Marine Committee was at first highly pleased
but later, on learning that Hopkins had not strict-
ly followed his instructions, ordered an inquiry.
He was suspended and never again served in the
Continental navy, which was unfortunate. The
Warren was given to Capt Dudley Saltonstall,
who soon afterwards commanded the fleet on the
disastrous Penobscot expedition, in which it
seems likely that Hopkins would have done bet-
ter and could not have done worse. In 1780
Hopkins commanded the Massachusetts priva-
teer ship Tracy with sixteen guns and a hundred
men. In this vessel he cruised with some success
but was finally captured (G. W. Allen, "Massa-
chusetts Privateers of the Revolution/5 Massa-
chusetts Historical Society Collections, vol. 77,
1927, p. 304). The next year he commanded the
Rhode Island privateer sloop Success (United
States Library of Congress, Naval Records of the
American Revolution, prepared by C. H. Lin-
coln, 1906, p. 466). After the war he retired to
the obscurity of private life and died at the age
of fifty-four.

[Edward Field, Esek Hopkins (1898); G. W. Allen,
A Naval Hist, of the Am. Revolution (% vols., 1913);
C. 0. Pattllin, Out-Letters of the Continental Marine
Committee (2 vols., 1914); Albert Holbrook, Geneal.
of One Line of the Hopkins Family (1881).]

G.W.A.

Hopkins

HOPKINS, JOHN HENRY (Jan. 30, 1792-
Jan. 9, 1868), first Protestant Episcopal bishop
of Vermont, only child of Thomas and Elizabeth
(Fitzakerly) Hopkins, was of English and Irish
lineage. His father, descended from the Hop-
kinses of Coventry, England, was a merchant in
Dublin; his mother was the brilliant and accom-
plished daughter of a Fellow of Trinity College.
In 1800 the family sailed for the New World.
The talented son was educated by his mother
(who conducted a successful school for girls in
Trenton, N. J,, and later in Philadelphia) and in
private schools. His friends were all free-think-
ers, and from his seventeenth to his nineteenth
year he studied the writings of Paine, Hume,
and Voltaire; but, determined to know the other
side of the question, he procured Christian books
also, and by reading and discussion became con-
vinced of the truth of the Gospel. At twenty-one
he became superintendent of ironworks near
Pittsburgh, where on May 8, 1816, he married
Melusina Miiller, of German and French-Hugue-
not descent.

When peace with England put an end to his
iron enterprise, he threw himself into the study
of law and shortly rose to leadership at the Pitts-
burgh bar. Serving without salary as temporary
organist of Trinity Episcopal Church, Pitts-
burgh, he became a communicant, and in 1823
the struggling church unanimously elected him
rector. Regarding this startling call as indicat-
ing divine guidance, and whole-heartedly sup-
ported by his wife, he accepted the invitation,
exchanging his professional income of $5,000 for
a salary of $800, and was rapidly advanced to
full clerical standing. Having considerable
knowledge of Gothic architecture, he drew plans
for a church seating a thousand people; the
building was erected and consecrated in 1825;
and in that year nearly a hundred and fifty per-
sons were confirmed. In 1831 he accepted a re-
peated call to be assistant minister of Trinity
Church, Boston, and to cooperate in the opening
of a divinity school in Cambridge. The follow-
ing year he was elected first Episcopal bishop of
Vermont, at a salary of $500, and was tendered
the rectorship of St. Paul's Church, Burlington,
which he held, in addition to his episcopal office,
until he became presiding bishop over a quarter
of a century later. Always deeply interested in
church education, he developed a school in his
home, with theological students as teachers. Its
rapid growth led him to undertake extensive en-
largement of his buildings, but the financial panic
of 1837 swept away his property, and for twenty
years he struggled heroically under a burden of
debt. It was finally cleared, however, and he had

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