General Notes

[Joanne's Tree.1 GED.GED]

2  SOUR S332582
3  DATA
4  TEXT Date of Import: 14 Jan 2004


[daveanthes.FTW]

RFN: 3744 Stephen   Hopkins  sailed in the   [UL: Mayflower :UL] in 1620, one of the "Londoners" or "Strangers" recruited for the voyage. He was called "Master" and only two others of the 17 free men on the voyage were so s tyled. He seems to have originated from the family of Hopkins, alias Seborne, located for several generations at Wortley, Wotton Underedge, co. Gloucester. The Wortley historian has conjectured, after a thorough study of the family, t hat Stephen of the
  [UL: Mayflower :UL] may well have been son of Stephen Hopkins,  a clothier of Wortley who also had a son Robert Hopki ns  of London. Stephen   Hopkins  was probably the young man of tha t name who served as minister's clerk on the vessel   [UL: Sea Venture :UL ] which sailed from London 2 June 1609, bound for Virginia. The ship was sever ely damaged in a hurricane, and the company was washed ashore on the Bermudan "Ile of Divels" on 28 July. The 150 survivors were marooned on the island for nine months, building two vesses which ultimately took them to Virginia. Durin g the sojourn Stephen Hopkins encouraged an uprising by his fellows upon groun ds that the Governor's authority pertained only to the voyage and the regime i n Virginia, not to the forced existence in Bermuda. For his remarks he was pla ced under guard, brought before the company in manacles and sentenced to deat h by court-martial. "But so penitent hee was and made so much moane, alleadgin g the ruine of his Wife and Children in this his trespasse," according to Will iam   Strachey's record of the voyage, that friends among his cohorts procured a pardon from the Governor. The two newly built vessels, the   [UL : Patience :UL] and the   [UL: Deliverance, :UL] arrived at Jamestown on 24  May 1610, but no evidence has been found of Hopkins' residence there, and it is presumed he soon returned to his family in England.   Strachey not ed that while Hopkins was very religious, he was contentious and defiant of au thority and possessed enough learning to undertake to wrest leadership from ot hers. The home in England of Stephen Hopkins was just outside of London Wall on the high road entering the city at Aldgate in the vicinity of Heneage House . In this neighborhood lived John   Carver  and William Bradford : BO] of the   [UL: Mayflower :UL] company; Robert   Cushman, the Lon don agent for the Pilgrims; and Edward   Southworth,  who later came to  New England. Stephen was called a tanner or leathermaker at the time of the [ BO: [UL: Mayflower :UL] voyage. The name of Stephen's first wife remains unkn own. No authority has been found  for the oft published identification of her as Constance   Dudley.  His second wife was named Elizabeth, and it se ems certain that the marriage of Stephen   Hopkins and Elizabeth   Fisher  on 19 February 1617 at St. Mary Matfellon, Whitechapel, London, pe rtains to them. Stephen, wife Elizabeth and children Giles and Constance by fi rst wife and daughter Damaris by second wife, and two men servants, Edward [B O: Doty  and Edward Lister, came on the   [UL: Mayflower. :UL ] Son Oceanus was born during the voyage. Upon the ship's arrival at Cape Cod 11 November 1620, Stephen was among the men sigining the   Mayflower Compac t  in the cabin. He was one of three men designated to provide counsel and  advice to Captain Myles
  Standish  on the first land expedition of th e Pilgrims in the New World. During the third day out, the company chanced upo n an Indian deer trap, and Stephen was able to explain its function and dange r to his fellows. In Februar of 1620, when Indians appeared on a neighboring h illtop, Captain   Standish  took Stephen Hopkins  with him to negotiate with the savages. Thereafter, Stephen was invariably deputized to me et the Indians and act as an interpreter. In Jul