Hopper

1836-46 (1853). Letters and other manuscripts are
available in the archives of the Pa. Hist. Soc.]

W.B.

HOPPER, ISAAC TATEM (Dec. 3, 1771-
May 7, 1852), humanitarian, abolitionist, was
born in Deptford, Gloucester County, N. J., the
son of Levi and Rachel (Tatem) Hopper. His
father came of a Quaker family, his mother was
a member of the Presbyterian Church. Isaac
settled in Philadelphia in 1787 at the age of six-
teen, served a period of apprenticeship as a tailor,
and then opened a tailor-shop on his own ac-
count. He was profoundly influenced in his re-
ligious life by William Savery [q.v.], a promi-
nent Philadelphia Quaker preacher of that pe-
riod, and he joined the Society of Friends by
his own request, at the age of twenty-two. On
Sept 18, 1795, he married Sarah Tatum, a dis-
tant relative. He had imbibed in his early youth
a strong sympathy for negro slaves and as a
young man became a member of the Pennsylva-
nia Abolition Society. Before 1800 he had begun
the work of assisting runaway slaves to escape.
He became thoroughly familiar with the "under-
ground" methods of procedure in Philadelphia
and from 1800 until 1829, when he moved to New
York, he was one of the foremost promoters of
the secret transmission of slaves through the city
on their way northward. He became an expert
in all the intricacies of the laws affecting slaves
and he handled many slave cases in the Phila-
delphia courts as voluntary advocate. He was
tactful, quick in the discovery of expedients, de-
void of fear, and he soon acquired unusual pres-
tige as the defender of the friendless and op-
pressed.

In 1822 his wife, the mother of ten children,
died. Two years later, in 1824, he married Han-
nah Attmore. When in 1827 the "Separation"
occurred in the Society of Friends in Philadel-
phia, Hopper affiliated himself with the so-called
"Hicksite" section and became one of the leaders
of that branch. Moving to New York City in
1829, he became manager of a bookshop and
transferred his anti-slavery activities to the New
York center of operations. He often sent es-
caping slaves by water from New York to Provi-
dence and Boston. Both he and his son John
were set upon by mobs, the father in New York,
the son in Charleston, S. C, but they both es-
caped without serious injury. His daughter, Abi-
gail Hopper Gibbons [q.vJ] and his son-in-law,
James Sloan Gibbons [q.v.'] were also active in
anti-slavery activities. In 1841, Hopper became
associated with Lydia Maria Child [#.z/.] in'the
editorship and management of the National Anti-
Slavery Standard. His public work in connec-
tion with this extreme anti-slavery journal and

Hopper

his reputation in connection with the "Under-
ground Railroad" aroused an opposition to him.
A section in the Quaker Meeting (the "Hicksite
Branch") led by a conservative minister of the
Society disapproved of public reform work car-
ried on by Friends. Furthermore, the press of
the city and its churches generally, reflected the
feeling of its merchants, who had a large and
profitable Southern trade and did not wish that
trade disturbed. The Society of Friends, which
had, eighty years previous, disowned the last few
of its members who would not manumit their
slaves, was at this time, and for the next decade
much influenced by the pervading pro-slavery
sentiment. Hopper, his son-in-law Gibbons, and
Charles Marriott were "disowned from member-
ship" in 1841 by the New York Monthly Meet-
ing. An appeal was made by these three Friends
to the Quarterly Meeting and the Yearly Meet-
ing, both of which narrowly sustained the action
of the Monthly Meeting. Hopper continued
throughout his life to wear the Quaker garb and
to use the Quaker form of speech and he was
always popularly known as "Friend Hopper/'
Work for prison reform paralleled his anti-slav-
ery work and equally absorbed his attention.
During his period of life in Philadelphia he had
been an inspector of prisons and in the New
York period he gave much time to the work of
the prison association of the state. As he grew
older and his anti-slavery work slackened, he be-
came agent of the Prison Association of New
York and gradually acquired the reputation of
being one of the foremost experts in penology in
the United States. His work fell into three
parts: first, protecting and defending persons
who were arrested and held without suitable legal
counsel; second, advising and instructing con-
victs while in prison; and third, aiding dis-
charged prisoners in their return to normal so-
cial and business relations. His work in this field
was of a high order and entitles him to a place
among the notable reformers of prison systems
and prison methods. He had become everywhere
recognized as the prisoner's friend and helper as
he had been throughout his life the friend and
helper of persons of color when he died in New
York City.

[L. M. Child, Isaac T. Hopper: A True Life (1853) ;
Sarah Hopper Emerson, Life of Abby Hopper Gibbons
(2 vols., 1897) ; William Still, The Underground Rail-
road (1872); W. H. Siebert, The Underground Rail-
road (1898); R. P. Tatum, Tatum Narrative 1626-
1925 (1925); Narrative of the Proc. of the Monthly
Meeting of N. Y.f and Their Subsequent Confirmation
by the Quarterly and Yearly Meetingsf in the Case of
Isaac T. Hopper (1843); files of the National Anti-
Slavery Standard; obituaries in that journal, May 13*
1852, and in the N. 7. Tribune, May 8,1852.]

R.MJ.

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