The House of Hopkins

Check it out! My essay “A Maryland Mystery: Johns Hopkins, the 1850 Census, and Slavery," written with my co-researchers Edward C. Papenfuse, Stan Becker, and Samuel B. Hopkins, has been awarded the 2022 Joseph Arnold Prize for Outstanding Writing on Baltimore’s History.

Clifton Park, the summer home of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Pictured in 2021.

Telling the Story of Johns Hopkins and his Quaker Family

Welcome to my blog! Along with three research partners, I am exploring the life and Quaker roots of Johns Hopkins, the founder of Johns Hopkins University. Organized around key members of the Hopkins family and employing an evidence-driven approach, my essays will focus special attention on the family's relationship to slavery and abolitionism during the 18th and 19th centuries.

A Quaker Silhouette

Silhouettes were a Quaker artform. This example depicts Minnie Hopkins in 1866.

Certificate of Freedom for Affy

Affy was enslaved by Johns Hopkins' grandfather, manumitted by deed in 1778, and released in 1796.

Johns Hopkins $1 Stamp

One dollar Johns Hopkins postage stamp, issued June 7, 1989.

"As a religious society we have found it to be our indispensable duty to declare to the world our belief of the repugnancy of slavery to the Christian religion." - 1821 Discipline of the Yearly Meeting of Friends Held in Baltimore.