HOPKINS, STEPHEN (1707-85). A Colonial Governor of Rhode Island, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was born in Providence, R. I., and was descended from an old English family, his great-grandfather, Thomas Hopkins, having settled in Providence about 1638. Stephen's early life was spent on a farm, and he had little opportunity to gain an education, though under the tutelage of his grandfather and uncle he learned surveying, and later broadened his intellectual horizon by ex tensive reading. In 1732 he began his active participation in public affairs by becoming clerk of the newly constituted township of Scituate. a position which he continued to hold for ten years. From 1732 to 1738 (excepting the year 1734) he was a representative from Scituate to the General Assembly, and upon being returned in 1741 he was chosen Speaker. He became a justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1736 and was ap pointed its clerk in 1741. Six years later he was made assistant justice of the Superior Court at Newport and in 1751 Chief Justice. He was one of the Rhode Island delegates to the intercolonial congresses which met in 1746, 1754, 1755, and 1757, and in the Albany convention of 1754 was a member of the committee which was appointed to draw up a 'plan of union.' (See ALBANY CON VENTION.) In 1755 he was elected Governor of Rhode Island and was reelected almost continu ously until 176S, when he withdrew filially from the gubernatorial contest. Meanwhile he had ac quired large shipping and commercial interests, and had begun to take an active interest in the question of England's right to tax the Colonies.
In 1764 he sent to the Assembly a tract, The Rights of Colonies Examined, which the Assembly ordered to be published and which was widely read. After acting as chairman of several Co lonial committees, he was a member of the Gen eral Assembly from 1770 to 1775. In 1774 he framed a bill to prohibit the importation of slaves, and from 1774 to 17S0 was one of Rhode Island's representatives in the Continental Con gress, being one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He was also a member of the Rhode Island Council of War and a dele gate to numerous New England conventions. Ile died in Newport. He wrote: A True Represen tation of the Plan Formed at Albany for Uniting All the British North American Colonies (1755) ; and An Historical Account of the Planting and Growth of Providence (originally published in the Providence Gazette in 1762 and 1765), which, though a fragment, is of considerable value. It has been republished in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2d series, vol. ix. (Boston, 1822), and in the Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society, vol. vii. (Provi dence, 1885). Consult Foster, Stephen Hopkins, a. Rhode Island Statesman (Providence, ISs4; forming Nos. 19 and 20 of the Rhode Island His torical Tracts).