Thomas Hopkins

Who was Thomas Hopkins?

Thomas Hopkins, was an early settler of Providence Rhode Island, and the great grandfather of Stephen Hopkins who was many times colonial governor of Rhode Island and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Hopkins was baptized in Yeovilton, county Somerset on 7 April 1616, the son of William Hopkins and Joane Arnold. His mother was the sister of early Providence settler William Arnold, and the daughter of Nicholas and Alice Arnold of Northover and Ilchester in Somerset. Hopkins' mother died when he was five years old, after which he and his sister Frances were likely taken into the family of their Uncle William Arnold, and most writers on his early history agree that he, aged 19, sailed to New England with his uncle's family in 1635. Also on the same ship was his first cousin, Benedict Arnold, also aged 19, the future governor of the Rhode Island colony.

The Arnolds first settled in Hingham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but in less than a year, in April 1636, they joined Roger Williams, and were among the first settlers of Providence. Soon thereafter they were the first English settlers on the Pawtuxet River, the southern edge of Williams's Providence purchase.