Introduction

In A Silhouette, Helen Hopkins Thom wrote that Hannah Hopkins was "a woman of spirit, fortitude, and high ideals." Sadly though, there is little surviving information about Hannah, the beloved mother of businessman and philanthropist Johns Hopkins. All that we know of her is gleaned from family remembrances, Quaker Meeting records, and a set of letters that she wrote to her children and brother.[1] What do these documents tell us about Hannah, who was such an important and influential person in Johns Hopkins’ life?

Summary

Hannah Hopkins, nee Janney, was born on May 19, 1774, in northern Virginia near Leesburg in Loudon County. She was the daughter of Hannah Jones and Joseph Janney, Sr., and part of a prominent Quaker family based in the "Valley of Virginia." Hannah had several siblings and retained close ties to relatives and friends in Virginia well after moving to Maryland.

On August 29, 1792, at age eighteen, Hannah married Samuel Hopkins in Loudoun. Together they had eleven children between the years 1793 and 1811 at the Hopkins family plantation, White Hall, in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. This means that Hannah was either pregnant or nursing without pause for 18 years! Miraculously, all eleven children survived to adulthood, although four of her sons—Gerard, Mahlon, Philip, and Joseph—died before Hannah passed away in 1846.

Hannah lived most of her life in Anne Arundel County at White Hall with her children and husband, and she was an active member of the Indian Spring Quaker Preparatory Meeting.[2] Her husband Samuel passed away in 1814, when their youngest child Mary was not yet three years old. Hannah would live another 32 years. Along with her oldest son Joseph Janney Hopkins, Hannah managed the family's plantation house and farm. 

Sometime after 1840, Hannah moved to Baltimore to live with Johns Hopkins and some of her surviving children. She joined the Orthodox Baltimore Monthly Meeting. In 1842, Hannah’s son Johns Hopkins sold Hannah two houses on Franklin Street in Baltimore, likely so they could serve as sources of regular income for her. Shortly thereafter, Hannah Hopkins, along with her daughters Hannah and Elizabeth, moved into Johns' mansion house at 177 Lombard Street.[3]

Hannah died in Baltimore on November 25, 1846, at the age of 72. Johns Hopkins was the administrator of her estate, and in May 1848 he sold Hannah’s Franklin Street properties to his brother and Hannah’s son, Samuel Hopkins, Jr. The location of her grave is unknown, but we believe that she was buried at the Hopkins family burial ground near White Hall.

We have few records of Hannah's life while her children were young, but during in the 1820s through the early 1840s Hannah was in written correspondence with her brother in Virginia and her adult sons in Baltimore. Only five of Hannah's letters have survived, but they tell us quite a bit about her approach to life, faith, and motherhood. 

Religious Views and Quakerism

Meeting minutes indicate that Hannah belonged to the Indian Spring Quaker Preparatory Meeting, and subsequently to the Baltimore Monthly and Quarterly Meetings after leaving Anne Arundel County to live with her son Johns. Records state that Hannah was known to have “a gift in the ministry,” and her personal letters frequently employed religious imagery and rhetoric, particularly as solace or encouragement for her children. This is evident in her letter to Johns Hopkins after the death of her son and his brother Mahlon Hopkins in 1840. Hannah writes:

But, oh dear Johns, I have often to deeply feel and deplore my great privation, then let us remember that these things are not the effect of chance, but of Him whom “a sparrow doth not fall to the group without his notice.” But His care for us is such that the hairs of our heads are numbered. Oh then may we be strengthened by so awakening a call as the present, to give up to serve the living God with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our strength. Oh, mayest thou wrestle for the blessing even as Jacob of old, when he wrestled with the angel until break of day, saying, I will not let thee go until thou bless me. Oh my very dear son, I hope thee will be favored to persevere. Remember it is declared that the Lord hath never said to the wrestling seed of Jacob, seek ye my face in vain. Oh would not our spirits all rejoice together that when done with the conflicting things of time we shall have a well-grounded hope of gaining an admittance into the mansions of Eternal rest, where we could unite in singing praises to the Lord God and the Lamb.

As this passage exemplifies, Hannah was motivated by core tenets of Quakerism such as the ubiquity of God and His light, the value of work, and the fellowship of humankind. In various letters she also admits to personal imperfections in her practice of these ideals, particularly with reference to imparting them to her children. 

Parenting and Motherhood

Hannah was an anxious mother. She often signed her letters “thy attached mother,” but sometimes added “thy anxious and attached mother.” And in an 1826 letter to her brother Joseph Janney in Virginia, Hannah states:

I may experimentally say it is a great blessing to have comfort in children although it may be through the medium of much anxiety and care.

Here, Hannah clearly identifies the main tension in parenting: the balance between the worry and work that her children make for her and the joy and pride they also bring her. In this letter and others, Hannah often expresses excitement for her sons’ endeavors and accomplishments along with concern and uncertainty. 

This balance between anxiety and joy is also clear in Hannah’s 1839 letter to Philip in which she discusses a trip he planned to take to Cuba. In a postscript to the letter, Hannah writes what even today is recognizable as the natural apprehension of a mother whose child is about to embark on a faraway adventure. Hannah had researched the climate and geography of the island and identified several possible dangers, including tropical disease, and she also urges her son to keep a journal of his travels and gives him suggestions for snacks to bring on his journey ("I think dried peaches will be good"). Tragically, Philip died in Havana of yellow fever in 1843.

The known correspondence between Hannah and Philip indicates that she had a particularly special relationship with him and worried about him greatly. A central concern seems to have been that Philip would fall prey to the temptations of the secular world:

Dear Philip, I often view thee as a tender plant even of the Father’s right hand planting. May thee be willing to come under his forming hand and to turn a deaf ear to all the false tho flattering follies and vanities of this delusive world.

And later in the same letter, she says:

Oh, my dear Philip, I need not to point out the evils thee ought to refrain from or the good thee should attend to, believing that thou art well acquainted with that light which will and does make manifest and that thou knowest to choose the good and to refuse the evil. May it be thy happy experience in every time of trial, and there may be many in your large City where temptations abound, but ever remember there is a strong tower, a rock of defense, where unto thou mayest always flee unto and find refuge.

She also reflects on her parenting of her "tender plant" Philip and says:

I have often to turn over the leaves of my life and to examine myself with respect to my conduct toward you and altho I may have fallen short in my religious care in many respects while you were under my roof, which period I often recur to as happy days, yet I am thankful in remembering the state of innocence you appeared to be in which made you happy and I enjoyed your innocent pleasures and conversation, feeling you the nearest and dearest ties left me on this earth, for whom I have devoted my youth and the strength of my days, for which I desire no greater joy than to hear of your walking in the truth. 

At the same time, Hannah was not shy about chiding Philip for failing to write frequently enough and for not accompanying her on a visit to relatives in Occoquan, Virginia, as she expresses here:

My Dear Philip It has often been impressed upon my mind that it would be a source of comfort to write to thee and to receive return from thy pen. I have anxiously expected thee to write since my return from my late visit to our friend[s] of Occoquan and Alexandria.

Further along in the same letter, she continues to harp on the point, writing that both she and the family’s friends “were very much disappointed” that Philip did not join them.

Although we have only one letter from Hannah to Johns Hopkins, she seems less concerned for his welfare, expressing high hopes for his hard work and good fortune without qualifiers. The relationship between Hannah and Johns appears to have been a solid one but also one that evolved over time: In the one known letter from Johns to Hannah, Johns expresses a fear that he has long failed to fully appreciate his mother, despite always holding great affection and respect for her. He writes:

I fear I have not known or appreciated thy worth my dear Mother. Altho I have always cherished the greatest respect and affection for thee, I fear I have not had sufficient respect for the pearl of great price which has always been thy inestimable privilege to seek.

There are no surviving letters between Hannah and any of her daughters. From the evidence we have, her greatest hopes and her deepest worries were placed on her sons. In another letter to Philip of unknown date, Hannah makes her expectations for her sons quite clear:

May I fondly hope that my sons will dignify the name of Hopkins. I think they have it in their power and do not neglect it. Should it be reversed I shall be greatly disappointed.

Conclusion

Family and faith were the twin pillars of Hannah Hopkins' life. Her children would test both her identity as a woman of God and her identity as a mother. As we now know, four of her sons - Johns, Samuel, Jr., Mahlon, and Philip - were disowned by the Society of Friends for selling alcohol. Samuel was also disciplined for having in his house "two colored persons who are slaves."

Nevertheless, Hannah's devotion to her children does not waver. Religion was central to how Hannah understood her role as a mother, but her love for her children seems not to have been conditional. Worries for their souls—and accompanying guilt trips—were part of the "trial" of motherhood to which she must "submit."

Losing four of her children during her lifetime must have been devastating to Hannah, perhaps most acutely the loss of her beloved son Philip in 1843. Fortunately, her wish that her sons would dignify the name of Hopkins was fulfilled beyond her imagination. 

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[1] Hannah's letters are available in the Hopkins Family Collection of the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries at https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/63248. Transcriptions of the letters have been uploaded to the Johns Hopkins History Project website at https://osf.io/b6ys3/ and can be located under Files and then Evidence Documents/Letters/Hannah Hopkins.

[2] See http://www.transcribedoc.net/index.php/Orthodox_Quakers_and_Slavery:_Baltimore,_1828-1900.

[3] Ed Papenfuse has identified the residence locations of Johns Hopkins' homes in Baltimore. See http://www.rememberingbaltimore.net/. 

May I fondly hope that my sons will dignify the name of Hopkins. I think they have it in their power and do not neglect it. Should it be reversed I shall be greatly disappointed.

-Undated letter from Hannah Hopkins to her son Philip Hopkins, c1826-40