One of the challenges of studying the family of Johns Hopkins in Maryland is its enormity. The Hopkins family reaches back generations to the very founding of Maryland as a British proprietary colony. Nuclear family units are often very large, including in many cases ten or more children. By the mid-eighteenth century the family held lands in the northern, central and southern regions of the Province of Maryland, making the geographic distribution of family members extensive. To complicate the genealogy even more, there were families with the surname Hopkins living in Maryland during the same period that appear to be unrelated, or least very distantly related, to the Quaker family of Johns Hopkins. Below I provide very brief sketches of key members of Johns Hopkins' paternal family line as well as of his ten sisters and brothers, all of whom lived to adulthood. More information about these individuals can be found elsewhere on this blog and in the Hopkins Family Tree I have created at ancestry.com.

JOHNS HOPKINS' GREAT-GRANDPARENTS

Gerrard and Margaret (Johns) Hopkins

Gerard Hopkins was born on October 8, 1683, in Anne Arundel county (colony of Maryland) to Gerard and Thomson Hopkins.[1] He married Margaret Johns on November 30, 1700, in Calvert County, Maryland. They were members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and had ten children in 19 years. Gerard died in 1743; Margaret died six years later in 1749. 

Gerard and Margaret Hopkins were major landholders and successful tobacco planters in colonial Maryland. In his will of 1746, Gerard divided his various landholdings between his many children. One son was given land in Harford county, another son was given land in Baltimore County near Towson (then called Towsontown), and yet another son - Johns Hopkins the Elder - inherited a "Tract of Land called White's Hall" in Anne Arundel county near Millersville (present-day Crofton) at the head of the South River. Like Johns, some of the other children of Gerard and Margaret Hopkins remained in Anne Arundel county, inhabiting lands near or adjacent to White's Hall.

Gerard and Margaret Hopkins were slaveholders. In his will, Gerard listed some of the family slaves by name, including a "Man named Dover," a "Man named Victor," a "Woman named Hannah," a "Boy named Toby (Hannah’s son), and several others. Johns Hopkins the Elder inherited two enslaved men from Gerard, one of whom may have been named Ceasar. Further: "I [Gerard Hopkins] leave and bequeath the remaining part of my estate, whether of Negroes, stock, money, tobacco, household goods, or whatever other Denomination soever to me belonging ... in the possession of my wife Margarett Hopkins during her widowhood."

JOHNS HOPKINS' GRANDPARENTS

Johns and Elizabeth (Thomas) Hopkins

The youngest son of Gerard and Margaret, Johns Hopkins was born on December 30, 1720, in Anne Arundel county. He had six sons and five daughters with Elizabeth Thomas, including Samuel Hopkins, the father of the philanthropist Johns Hopkins. In 1778, following the direction of the Society of Friends, Johns Hopkins manumitted 42 of the family's enslaved people. Read more about Johns Hopkins the Elder and these manumissions here. 

JOHNS HOPKINS' PARENTS

Samuel and Hannah (Janney) Hopkins

The first child of Johns and Elizabeth Hopkins, Samuel Hopkins, was born on February 3, 1759, in Anne Arundel county. Samuel married Hannah Janney on August 29, 1792. The Janneys were a prominent Quakers based in Loudoun, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. Samuel and Hannah had 11 children in 17 years before Samuel died in 1814. The first child was named Joseph Janney Hopkins and the second was Johns Hopkins. Samuel helped carry out the manumissions of the enslaved people named in his father's Deed of 1778. Samuel inherited the White Hall plantation, where he continued to grow tobacco and raise livestock.

JOHNS HOPKINS' SIBLINGS

Joseph Janney Hopkins (1793-1845): Joseph J. Janney was the first child and oldest son of Samuel and Hannah Hopkins. As a young man he studied in Alexandria, Virginia but had to return to White's Hall in 1814 when his father died. In 1832, he manumitted two enslaved women Minty and Louisa Wells who he may have purchased to free and employ. The year after he freed Minty and her daughter, in 1833, he married Elizabeth Scofield from Winchester, Virginia. Joseph and Elizabeth eventually became the owners and operators of White's Hall. Together they had four sons - Lewis Louis Neill Hopkins (born in 1834), Gerard Israel Hopkins (born in 1836), Samuel Hopkins (born in 1838) and Joseph Schofield Hopkins (born in 1840). Joseph S. Hopkins was the father of Helen Hopkins Thom.

Eliza Hopkins (1797–1875): Eliza Hopkins was born on May 19, 1797, the first daughter of Samuel and Hannah Hopkins. She married once and had no children of her own. Her husband, Nathaniel Crenshaw, was from Virginia and was involved in anti-slavery causes on behalf of the Society of Friends. After he died, Eliza lived with Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and eventually became his primary housekeeper. She died on August 1, 1875, having lived a long life of 78 years. She is buried in Greenmount Cemetery alongside her brother Johns.

Sarah Hopkins (1799–1879): Sarah Hopkins was the second daughter of Samuel and Hannah Hopkins. She married Richard Mott Janney (a maternal relative) in 1829 and together they had three children. They lived on a farm called Edgely near present-day Bel Air, Maryland. Sarah died at the age of 80 in 1879 and was buried in Greenmount Cemetery alongside Johns. Sarah is the mother of Jane Janney, a favorite niece of Johns Hopkins, who married Francis White, a step-nephew of Johns Hopkins and the stepson of her aunt Margaret Hopkins.

Hannah Hopkins (1801–1868): Hannah, who never married and had no children, was reportedly very close to her mother and her brother Johns. She was the primary caregiver of her mother, also named Hannah, during her elderly years and was Johns' housekeeper at his Baltimore properties. She died on March 23, 1868, in Baltimore and was buried in Greenmount Cemetery. When Johns died, her body was moved and buried alongside her brother and sisters Sarah and Eliza

Samuel Hopkins, Jr. (1803–1868): Samuel was one of several partners with his brother Johns Hopkins in the firm Hopkins Brothers. In the mid-1830s, Samuel formed a business partnership with T.R. Matthews, but the company went bankrupt during the financial crisis of 1837 and the ensuing recession. Samuel married twice. The first marriage was short lived; the second was to Lavinia Jolliffe, the daughter of a prominent Virginia family with Quaker roots (though Lavinia was not a member of the Society of Friends). Samuel and Lavinia had a daughter and three sons. They also held at least six enslaved people who were acquired from the Jolliffe family in Virginia. Samuel was disowned by the Quakers in 1839 for having "in his family two colored persons who are slaves." Samuel died in 1868 of scrofula (a form of tuberculosis) after an extended illness and was buried in Greenmount Cemetery. Lavinia died in 1884 having experienced the early deaths of all four of the her children. There are no living descendants of Sam and Lavinia's union.

Mahlon Hopkins (1805–1840): Mahlon was one of three original partners with Johns and Samuel Hopkins, Jr. in the firm Hopkins Brothers. Mahlon died in Baltimore in 1840, possibly of an aneurysm. He was unmarried and had no children.

Philip Hopkins (1807–1843): Philip was a partner in the firm Hopkins Brothers and a favorite son of his mother Hannah. He died in Havana, Cuba in 1843 of yellow fever. He was unmarried and had no children. 

Margaret Hopkins (1808–1891): Margaret Hopkins married Miles White in 1849, when she was 41 years old, and had no children of her own. Miles White had a son, Francis White, from a previous marriage. Francis married Johns Hopkins' favorite niece, Jane Janney (the daughter of Richard and Sarah Hopkins Janney). Their son, Miles White, Jr., was a historian who wrote about the family's genealogy.[2] Margaret died on March 24, 1891, in Baltimore, having lived a long life of 83 years, and was buried in Greenmount Cemetery.

Gerard Hopkins (1809–1835): Gerard was the youngest brother of Johns Hopkins and worked for Hopkins Brothers in Baltimore. It is said that died in the Baltimore Bank Riot of 1835 after being hit in the head with a rock, thought this may be an apocryphal tale. He was unmarried and had no children. 

Mary Rebecca Hopkins (1811–1854): Mary is the last child of Samuel and Hannah Hopkins and the only Hopkins sibling to leave Maryland. She married Gilbert Congdon in 1842, and they moved to Providence, Rhode Island. They had four children in 10 years before Mary died in 1854 from complications after giving birth to twins. She is buried in Providence, Rhode Island.  

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[1] See: https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/63318. 

[2] See Miles White, Jr., "Some Colonial Ancestors of Johns Hopkins," Southern History Association, vol. IV, no. 6, (1900).

Revision history:

7/15/2022: Minor revisions of wording, added a few factual details. 

7/19/2023: Added links. Updated bio of Samuel Hopkins, Jr.

10/22/2023: Minor revisions.