In my first post about the young life of Johns Hopkins, I wrote that "Samuel and Hannah Hopkins carried out the deed of 1778, fulfilled the dying wishes of Samuel’s father Johns Hopkins the Elder, and honored the commandments of their Quaker faith. Surrounded though they were by slave-owning plantations, Johns Hopkins' immediate family eschewed slavery during his formative years in Anne Arundel county." This post provides further evidence and context for this claim.

Introduction

On page 7 of Johns Hopkins: A Silhouette, Helen Hopkins Thom asserts that “all of the able-bodied negroes belonging to Samuel Hopkins [Johns Hopkins' father] were set free in the year 1807.” This claim has played a significant role in subsequent accounts of Johns Hopkins' formative years in rural Maryland. However, no one has been able to find any evidence that Samuel Hopkins manumitted enslaved people in 1807, not even the researchers working on this question at Johns Hopkins University.

Intrigued by this puzzle, I took a deep dive into the census records related to Johns Hopkins' family in Anne Arundel county during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, starting with the first federal census in 1790. 

Johns Hopkins’ family had enslaved people prior to 1800. We know this from the records of Johns Hopkins the Elder (1720-1783), who owned at least 42 enslaved people in 1778 who he manumitted in a deed filed with the Anne Arundel County Court. From this group, Samuel Hopkins inherited “one negro boy called John." Samuel Hopkins’ brothers and sisters also inherited enslaved people from the same estate, and Elizabeth Hopkins would have inherited the remainder who were not conveyed to one of Johns the Elder's other heirs. 

If Elizabeth Hopkins, Samuel's mother, accepted and kept all the enslaved individuals she inherited in 1783 upon her husband's death, she would have held 19 slaves in that year. And if Elizabeth honored her husband's wishes and freed those enslaved individuals as indicated in the1778 deed of manumission - assuming that she did not purchase additional slaves and that none of the 19 either died or had children - in 1790 she would have owned 17 enslaved people. But according to the census Elizabeth held exactly ten enslaved people in 1790.

The records may not match, but the evidence is clear that Johns Hopkins' family continued to hold enslaved people - somewhere between ten and 17 - in 1790. But what about in 1795, the year Johns was born? And then in 1800 when the next census was recorded?

Making the same assumptions as above - that there were no additional purchases, sales, manumissions, deaths, or births of enslaved people after 1778 - in 1795 there would have been at most 13 enslaved people at White Hall and at least one of these slaves, John, was owned by Samuel Hopkins. 

But by 1800 the census enumerator did not report any enslaved people living in Elizabeth Hopkins' or Samuel Hopkins' households. Indeed, of the original "Group of 1778" all but a few would have "termed out" of bondage by 1800. As for the enslaved man John, if Samuel honored his grandfather Johns the Elder's manumission contract of 1778, he should have released John in 1796 when he turned 25 years old. Only Daniel and Jemmy would have remained bound to White Hall until 1801, the year they both turned 25.

In other words, the only way that Samuel could have manumitted his many slaves is if he purchased or otherwise acquired additional enslaved people after 1801, including through natural reproduction. This brings us back to the claim, made by Helen Hopkins Thom, that "all the able-bodied negroes belonging to Samuel Hopkins were set free in the year 1807."  

What do the population records tell us? If it were also true that Samuel Hopkins jettisoned his slaveholdings in 1807, one would expect to find enslaved people living in his household enumerated on the 1800 census. Yet in 1800 there were no enslaved people inhabiting the White Hall plantation nor living in the households of Johns Hopkins’ close relatives.

Census Records

(From this point forward, it will be helpful to refer to the partial Hopkins family tree presented in Figure 1 below.)

I examined census records for the years 1790 - 1820, focusing on Johns Hopkins’ core family (grandparents, parents, siblings, and paternal aunts and uncles) and other relatives who lived near White Hall. According to the 1790 census, several members of the Hopkins family held enslaved people. In addition to Johns Hopkins’ grandmother Elizabeth Hopkins mentioned above, a relative named Elisha Hopkins held ten enslaved people in 1790. (Elisha Hopkins was a part-owner of the White Hall plantation for a period of time, having inherited a portion of it from his parents Gerard Hopkins and Mary (Hall) Hopkins. Gerard is the son of Gerard and Margaret (Johns) Hopkins, the younger Johns Hopkins’ great grandparents.)

There are additional Hopkins family members residing near White Hall who held enslaved people in 1790. This includes a Joseph Hopkins, likely the son of Johns Hopkins’ great uncle Gerard Hopkins, and a Richard Hopkins, likely Johns Hopkins’ paternal uncle. Joseph held seven enslaved people and five “other” free persons; Richard held two enslaved people and ten “other” free persons (race not indicated).

Again, the key question is whether Samuel Hopkins held enslaved people at White Hall in 1807, as is alleged in Helen Hopkins Thom’s book. If true, this would lead us to anticipate finding enslaved people in his household in the census of 1800. Indeed, an entry for Samuel Hopkins appears in 1800. By this time Samuel is married to Hannah Janney, and they are already the parents of three children – Joseph Janney Hopkins (b. 1793), Johns Hopkins (b. 1795), and Eliza Hopkins (b. 1799). 

However, there were no enslaved people in the census year 1800 listed in the households of Samuel Hopkins or his mother, Elizabeth Hopkins, who remains head of the White Hall mansion house (as specified in her husband’s will). Nor are there enslaved people associated with the households of family relatives who lived near the White Hall estate in 1800. This includes Elisha Hopkins, Joseph Hopkins, Johns Hopkins’ aunt Mary Hopkins Peach, and Philip Hopkins (Johns’ paternal uncle). See Figure 3 below.

The census of 1810 tells the same story. Again, there are no enslaved people listed as living in Samuel Hopkins’ household. Similarly, there are no enslaved people in most of the households of close relatives who live near White Hall. These include the homes of Johns Hopkins’ uncles Evan Hopkins and Philip Hopkins. See Figure 4 below.

As we know, Johns Hopkins’ father Samuel Hopkins died in 1814, leaving no will. Following a probate assessment, his land and property were granted to his surviving wife Hannah Hopkins and his children, with the plantation house eventually going to his eldest son Joseph Janney Hopkins. As expected, in the census register of 1820 we find a new household led by Johns Hopkins’ oldest brother Joseph Janney Hopkins (Helen Thom Hopkin’s grandfather). John’s mother Hannah Hopkins was living with Joseph Janney Hopkins, along with eight free persons of color. No enslaved people are listed. See Figure 5 below.

What about the larger Hopkins family living in Anne Arundel county in the late 18th and early 19th centuries? We have been focusing mainly on Johns Hopkins’ immediate family members – his grandparents Johns and Elizabeth Hopkins, parents Samuel and Hannah Hopkins, and brother Joseph Janney Hopkins. This group is the branch of the family, the Johns Branch, most closely associated with the White Hall plantation and mansion house (see right hand portion of Fig. 1).

Another branch of the family, the Gerard Branch, is also important for understanding Johns Hopkins’ early life (see left hand portion of Fig. 1). This line descends from Gerard and Margaret Johns Hopkins through their son, also named Gerard Hopkins, and his wife Mary Hall. Gerard and Mary (Hall) Hopkins have many children, some of whom appear in the family tree on page 1. This branch of the family includes Elisha Hopkins, Joseph Hopkins, and many others with ties to White Hall.

Unlike Johns Hopkins’ core family, some of these Hopkins relatives enslaved people after 1800. For example, on the 1820 census we find living near White Hall a man named Samuel S. Hopkins, who is probably the son of Richard Hopkins and Ann Snowden born in 1783. Samuel S. Hopkins holds three enslaved people. Another member of the Gerard Branch of the family – Isaac Hopkins - owns 17 enslaved people in 1820. 

Of particular interest is Johns Hopkins’ second cousin Philip Hammond Hopkins (see Fig. 1). Philip never married and apparently had no children. He also enslaved many people. In 1790 he held 16 enslaved men and women, in 1800 he held 12, and in 1810 he held 14. See below a bill of sale from Philip Hammond Hopkins to Nace Hall for the purchase of his wife and four children for the sum of $100.

Back to Samuel. So, the reason no one has been able to find evidence of Samuel Hopkins emancipating his enslaved workforce in 1807 is because the family held no enslaved people in 1807. The census records bear this out. Samuel Hopkins had helped release all of his family’s slaveholdings a decade earlier, during the 1790s, perhaps before Johns Hopkins was even born. This finding is in line with what we know about patterns of manumission among Quaker families during this period. These manumissions mostly occurred before the turn of the nineteenth century in response to directives issued by the Society of Friends starting in the 1770s and even before. 

We also know that Samuel Hopkins employed free, albeit indentured, Blacks on his farm around 1810. Lacking his own enslaved laborers, Samuel turned to free white and Black workers to help operate his large plantation.

At the same time, more distant relatives of Johns Hopkins' immediate family continued to enslave human beings throughout the early decades of the nineteenth century, as Johns Hopkins was no doubt brutally aware. 

Johns Hopkins left White Hall for Baltimore in 1812 when he was 17 years old. Some of his siblings followed him to Baltimore, while others, like his brother Joseph Janney Hopkins, remained in Anne Arundel county.