Society of Mayflower Descendants(Stephen Hopkins-Thomas Rogers)
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rigenweb/delegate.html
I am honored, excited and extremely proud to take associative ownership in that my wife is family to one of the great men who signed the declaration of independence. The only one fun enough to style a hat at the signing. Stephen Hopkins
Hopkins spoke out against British tyranny long before the revolutionary period. “The Rights of the Colonies Examined“
This family legacy does not let me rest on my laurels in no way
This knowledge only fuels my patriotism and redefines my confidence to speak to the preservation of our American Heritage and emboldens my personal resolve.
A Nice review of his useful purposeful life
Great men die and are forgotten,
Wise men speak; their words of wisdom
Perish in the ears that hear them,
Do not reach the generations
That, as yet unborn, are waiting
In the great, mysterious darkness
Of the speechless days that shall be!
On the grave-posts of our fathers
Are no signs, no figures painted;
Who are in those graves we know not,
Only know they are our fathers.
–Longfellow
My hand trembles, my heart does not.
–Hopkins as he signed the Declaration
So in following my forefather’s lead as a revolutionary leader of criticism on taxation and how he questioned the definition of colony rights under Great Britain’s parliament, I fear today we equally should gravely question actions and proposals Senators Obama & Biden to bolster governance oversight and reconsider the taxation policies of such plans empower any group of individuals further charge/control over us.
‘Tis why McCain speaks so much of lesser government involvement so that we can secure and keep the right and privilege of our freedoms of independent choice. In fact, many of McCain’s plans help put responsibility in the hands of individuals and “out of the hands of government.” Otherwise we have regressed to a looming aristocracy of D.C. residents…or worse yet an internal British-esque Monarchy!
There’s a political root cause to the mess that we ignore at our own peril. If we blame the wrong culprits, we’ll learn wrong lessons. And taxpayers end up on the hook for every fix for what washington misguides.
Obama and Democrats on the Hill want more government control over the American economy. And incrementally, piece by piece — their usual MO — they’re getting it. soon our democracy I fear will errode into a communistic aristocracy.
and now added humor::.
If the vote in 17 days goes foul as I fear it will I wont be surprised if we will have our own generational Boston Tea party by the end of 2012 no one can take 4 more years then - maybe thats why the Aztecs stop recording mankind’s history ! ? ! ?
AUGUSTUS STEPHEN HOPKINS
A. S. HOPKINS, senior member of the firm of Hopkins & Bro., dealers in wood and willow ware, 311-313 J street, Sacramento, is a veritable son of New England, possessed of all the versatility, energy and pluck so characteristic of new England people. He was born March 21, 1837, at Cambridge, Vermont; his father, S. F. Hopkins, was a merchant; his mother’s maiden name was Harriet Austin. The family is clearly of Welsh origin, and the direct line of ancestry can be traced back to the Mayflower. Stephen Hopkins was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The subject of this notice was educated at Georgia, Franklin County, Vermont. At the age of sixteen years he began teaching school, in his native town, and later at Grand Isle. In 1854 he emigrated to Crete, Illinois, a few miles south of Chicago, and taught school there four years. Thence he went to Blackjack and Cottonwood, Kansas, and was on hand to participate in the Kansas troubles in 1856-‘57, between the settlers and the border ruffians. Returning to Vermont, he was employed in a bookstore at Burlington, and in 1861 enlisted from Burlington as a private in the First Vermont Infantry, going out with the three-months men, to Newport News. He participated in the disastrous battle of Big Bethel, and at the expiration of his term of enlistment was honorably discharged and returned to his home in Vermont. In 1862, when twenty-five years old, still unmarried and unsettled in life, he determined once more to strike out for the far West, and came to the Golden State. Embarking on the steamer Ariel, he came by way of the Isthmus, arriving in San Francisco June 30, 1862. His first enterprise was the management of a dairy ranch which he owned in Marion County. This he sold in 1863, and he went to the Forest City mining district and engaged in dairying, saw-milling and mining. After a time he quit all these and resumed school-teaching, first in Solano County and afterward in Bloomfield, Sonoma County. In 1865 he became a member of the Maine Prairie Rifles in Solano, and was First Lieutenant of that organization. Was justice of the peace in 1866-‘67. February 4, 1868, he came to Sacramento and started a news office and bookstore, and continued in this line for ten years; then, in 1878, he sold out to W. A. and C. S. Houghton, who continued the business. Soon afterward he engaged in the wood and willow ware trade, in company with U. C. Billingsby. In 1886 his brother, E. C., succeeded Mr. Billingsby. Mr. Hopkins entered public life in 1876, as county supervisor for the unexpired term of J. A. Mason. Was a school trustee until 1888, and a director of the Free Library for five years. Is a member of Eureka Lodge, No. 4, I. O. O. F.; a past president of the Society of Veteran Odd Fellows; a member of Sumner Post, No. 3, G. A. R.; of Sacramento Lodge, No. 80, A. O. U. W.; of Unity Lodge, No. 2088, K. of H.; was president of the first Immigration Society, which was organized in 1878, and two years afterward was merged into the Central and Northern, and of which he was president for two years; was also, in 1886, one of the founders and has been a director up to this time, of the Sacramento Improvement Association; and also was one of the original members and directors of the Sacramento Board of Trade, and since then chosen to the same position. Mr. Hopkins was married April 17, 1868, to Miss Harriet Hewes, daughter of Jonathan Hewes, of Vermont, and a descendant of Cyrus Hewes, who also was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins have three children: Stephen I., Grace E. and William. Such, in brief, is the outline of the busy life of one of New England’s sons.
Transcribed 8-30-07 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 622-623. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
