Melville R. Hopewell

Who is Melville R. Hopewell?

Melville Reeves Hopewell was a Nebraska lawyer and Republican politician who served as the state's lieutenant governor from 1907-1911.

Hopewell was born in Monroe County, Indiana in 1845, and moved to Collin County, Texas with his parents in 1851. After his mother died in 1854, the family went back to Indiana where his father remarried, and then moved to Kansas followed by Gentry County, Missouri. Hopewell served in the Missouri Mounted Militia in 1863-64. He graduated from Indiana Asbury University in 1869 and was admitted to the bar in Indiana, and moved to Tekamah, Nebraska in 1870. He founded the first bank in Burt County, Nebraska in 1873. In 1887, Nebraska Governor Thayer appointed Hopewell as a district judge, and he served until 1896 and then returned to practicing law.

In 1906, Hopewell was elected as lieutenant governor. He served from January 1907 until he died in office on May 2, 1911.