HOPKINS

ELIZABETH STEADMAN HOPKINS, "Lizzie," was born 26 August 1870 in Perry County, Alabama, and died on 13 April 1900 at Chester, Texas. (1-2) On 29 August 1889, at Moscow, Texas, she married, as his first wife, Vinson Allen Collins (see Collins) who was born on 1 March 1867 in Hardin County, Texas, and is presently (1958) living in Livingston, Texas.

V. A. was teaching in a rural school when they first got married and Elizabeth encouraged him to complete his education and get a teacher's certificate. This they decided to do and moved to Huntsville where Lizzie ran a boardinghouse to support him while he went to school at Huntsville State Teachers College. Carr and Halley were born while V. A. was in school and were named after two of his professors.

Elizabeth was a fine wife and mother. She taught them to read and write before they went to school and kept them clean, well mannered and dressed neatly. She died when they were still young, but her early training continued with them (see Collins).

It is interesting to note that V. A. was later a State Senator and was appointed by the Governor to the Board of Regents for Teachers Colleges for the State of Texas and in such a capacity supervised the school he had once attended.

The children of Elizabeth and V. A. are listed under "Collins." Elizabeth was the daughter of

JOHN ALEXANDER HOPKINS was born on 12 October 1833 in Georgia according to the 1850 Census of Perry County, Alabama, even though the family was living in Perry County, Alabama, at that time. He died at Chester, Texas, on 12 February 1897. (1-2) On 17 November 1857, in Perry County, Alabama, (1-5) he married Rosanna E. Canon (see Canon) who was born in Perry County, Alabama, on 25 April 1840 and died on 5 December 1917 at Chester, Texas. (1-2) John and Rosanna were buried in the Mt. Hope Cemetery, Chester, Texas.

John A. Hopkins was wounded at the Battle of Lookout Mountain during the Civil War and Rosanna went to Atlanta to nurse him. When the war was over, they had lost everything and he could not make enough on his worn-out farm to provide for his family. John decided they should move to Texas, but Rosanna did not want to leave her parents, especially since their children were little and she was then expecting another. She wanted her father to discourage the move, but he thought it was great and gave them one of the wagons he had built for his trip to Texas and said they could live, rent free, on the farm in Tyler County, Texas, that his brother, John, had given him in default of a loan. So, in November 1875, they started their six weeks' trip to Texas, arriving on 22 December 1875.

The Texas blacklands really produced crops, and Rosanna wrote home telling of the wonderful cotton crop and the corn and how one of the beets in the field measured 35 inches around. The other children of Malcolm Canon did not like the idea of their sister getting such a wonderful farm, rent free, so Malcolm wrote about 1877/78 and told John that he would have to pay rent or move. John and Rosanna decided to move and they moved about twenty miles west to the community of Moscow.

The children of John and Rosanna were: (1-3) Nancy E., born 7 October 1858, died 7 June 1931, and married J. J. Barnes; Malcolm Canon, born 6 May 1860 and died 7 January 1882; John L., born 9 May 1862, died 25 August 1903, and married Alma Whitehead; Susan S., born 22 December 1864, died 29 December 1950, and married John Wyche; Mary Anna, 1866-1873; William Frank, born 30 September 1868, died 22 October 1931, and married Nannie Seamans; Elizabeth Stedman, "Lizzie" (see above), born 26 August 1870, died 13 April 1900, and married V. A. Collins; Eugenia, born 29 December 1871, died 20 January 1949, and married S. W. Baker; Lucy, born 25 November 1872, died 8 December 1942, and married William H. Dean; Lillian, born 27 September 1875 and married T. H. Dyer; Bertha, born 28 September 1877, died 6 March 1912, and married J. Shepherd Whitehead; Job Irvin, born 3 July 1879, died 10 February 1910, and married Alice Seamans; and David Winn, born 4 June 1883 and married Betty Whitehead.

John was the son of

LAMBETH (LAMBERT) HOPKINS was born in South Carolina on 24 September 1800(7) and died in Milam County, Texas, on 8 July 1873. (1) He married, on 4 June 1826, in Greene County, Alabama, (6) Susan Adcock who was born on 14 October 1803 in South Carolina according to 1850 Census, although family tradition says in Putnam County, Georgia, and died on 19 December 1886 in Milam County, Texas. Susan was the daughter of John Adcock and his wife, Elizabeth, who died in 1816.

Lambert was born in South Carolina in 1800.(7) The next records show his father, John Hopkins, died in Shelby County, Tennessee, in December 1813.(7) In June 1826, Lambeth is in Greene County, Alabama,(6) where he married Susan Adcock. Lambeth Hopkins is listed in the 1830 and 1850 Census as living in Perry County, Alabama. The "Tract Book" of Perry County, Page 184, shows Lambeth Hopkins exercised certificates of warrants to buy land on 19 July 1833 in T22 R 7. He is shown again, on 31 October 1849, buying land in T22 R 7 (Page 149) (8) After the Civil War and about 1870, we see Lambeth Hopkins with his family and most of the brothers and sisters of John A. Hopkins (see above) moving to Milam County, Texas. There were about ten wagon loads of the family to make this move.

The children of Lambeth and Susan were.(1-3) Elizabeth, born 12 March 1827, died 24 March 1874, and married Hillary Steadman; Sarah Ann, born 20 April 1828, died 10 July 1894, and married John Russell; Mary, born 27 November 1829, died 16 April 1909, and married Zachiah Maddox; Arrene, born 11 October 1831 and married Andrew Russell; Cyrene, born 11 October 1831 and married William Thomas Boyd; John Alexander (see above), born 13 October 1833, died 12 February 1897, and married Rosanna Emiline Canon; Susan Eleanor, born 6 October 1835 and married Chapman Spencer; Lucy (died in infancy); William Williams, born 10 December 1839, died 12 November 1906, and married Nancy Tubb; Pricilla, born 4 November 1841 and married, first, Jim Crawford, and, second, John P. Wooley; Nancy, born 26 July 1843, died 30 October  1913, and married Job Irvin Canon; and Richard Lambeth "Lam", born 16 August 1845 and married Jennie Wooley.  Lambeth was the son of

JOHN HOPKINS was born in 1769 and died on 12 December 1814 in Bedford County, Tennessee, of an arrow wound that he received at the Battle of Talledega in the War 0f 1812(7) He married Elizabeth Autrey who was born on 27 January 1771 and died on 29 July 1847. (3)

The movements of John are rather indefinite. His father Jonathan was born in Louisa County, Virginia, in 1748, and was in North Carolina in 1776 when he enlisted in the Continental Army.  Jonathan received his back pay in 1784 while living in Warrenton, North Carolina.  John Lambert, probably John's grandfather, also received his back pay in 1784 in Warrenton.

John and Elizabeth's son, Lambeth, was born in South Carolina in 1800, (7) which shows that his family probably moved from North Carolina to South Carolina sometime in the 1790's. The last records show John living in Shelbyville, Tennessee, when he died in 1813.

The children of John and Elizabeth were: John; Nancy, married a Fisher; Elizabeth, married a Tubb; Prescilla, married a Shaffer; Mahalia, married a Wilson; and Lambeth (see above), born 24 September 1800, died 8 July 1873, and married Susan Adcock.

John was the son of

JONATHAN HOPKINS was born in 1748 in Louisa County, Virginia, and died in North Carolina in 1797.(7) He married, in 1768, Elizabeth Lambert who was born in 1750 and died in 1803 in, North Carolina. (3)

Both the Hopkins and Lamberts probably came from Virginia to North Carolina. We do not know when they married, but we know Jonathan enlisted and served three years with the 5th Regiment of North Carolina Continental Line.  In 1784, Jonathan and a John Lambert received back pay while residing in Warrenton, North Carolina.

Jonathan Hopkins' military service record as contained in the D.A.R. Application 7 reads as follows: "Jonathan Hopkins enlisted as corporal, November 1776; he served until 1779 under Capt. Richard Caswell in the 5th Regiment 0f North Carolina Continental Line. He fought in the Battle of Ransours Mill and in many other engagements with Tories and Indians after 1779 (see North Carolina Army Records of years 1776-83, by Walter Clark, Historian, Vol. XVI, Page 1075). Jonathan Hopkins, in 1784, received army back pay for soldier service of L 144.5.0 at Warrenton, North Carolina, through his agent Phillip Miller (see ibid., Vol. XVII, p. 221). The North Carolina Records (Army) at Raleigh, show that one Jonathan Hopkins served in the Revolutionary Army as a Corporal in Capt. Robert Kenner's Company, 2nd North Carolina Regiment, commanded by Capt. John Patten. He enlisted on 21 November 1776 for three years and his name last appears on a Roll, dated Camp White Plains, 9 September 1778, with remark: 'Sick Princeton,' P. C. Harris, the Adjutant General."

Ref:

I. John A. Hopkins Family Bible, published by C. F. Vent, Cincinnati, 1869-owned by Clifton Baker, Nacogdoches, Texas.

2. Mt. Hope Cemetery, Chester, Texas.

3. History of the Hopkins Family by Bess H. Pearce, Los Angeles, California.

4. Interview with Susan Hopkins Wyche, 14 September 1949.

5. Marriage License, Perry County, Alabama.

6. Marriage License, Greene County, Alabama.

7. D.A.R. Application, National Number 393821, Jonathan Hopkins.

8. Letters-Flora D. England, Marion, Alabama.