Talk:Stephen Hopkins (merchant)

Untitled
Changed format, added categories and additional information. Hope you like it. Dthem 2000 15:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Mary Love
What is the reference that Mary Love was the name of his first wife? Kingturtle (talk) 19:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Updating of information
Information is updated here quite often as new information becomes available. Mugginsx (talk) 17:39, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Genealogical errors
The fact that his ancestry was misidentified for a very long period of time really must be included if we are going to avoid people "correcting" the correct information back to the old misinformation. If it can't be done in a footnote then it will require a new section. - Nunh-huh 17:40, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. Mugginsx (talk) 18:33, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Self-published sources
One of the main sources used for this article, The Mayflower and Her Passengers by Caleb Johnson, is not a reliable source per WP:RS and WP:SPS, because it is self-published (see Xlibris). I have therefore removed all the following content and brought it here in hopes that it can be sourced properly:

Hopkins' biographers had long stated he had originated in Wortley, Gloucester and had married Constance Dudley, but this claim was disproven in 1998 with the discovery of his origins in Hursley. His wife Mary's maiden name was unknown until 2012.

After almost two months into the voyage, a severe storm separated the ships of the flotilla on July 24, 1609, and by evening the storm began raging worse and lasted for five days. Just when the Sea Venture was about to sink from storm damage, "land" was called out with that being the island of Bermuda. The ship was forced to run itself aground about mile off-shore to keep from sinking. The castaways soon found that Bermuda was a Paradise, with plentiful water and food. [There was a source here only for the last sentence, which has nothing to do with Hopkins himself]

On September 1, 1609, a month after the shipwreck and after they had built up their ship's longboat for an ocean voyage, they sent eight men out to try to reach Jamestown, Virginia to get help but they never returned.

In late November 1609, commenced construction of boats enough to take everyone off the island. By January 1610, even though Stephen Hopkins had remained with Governor Gate's group, he started voicing dissatisfaction to the governance of Thomas Gates and questioning his authority.

Hopkins was arrested and charged with mutiny and was found guilty for which the sentence was death. Many persons begged mercy for him and he obtained a pardon. Hopkins ceased voicing controversial issues.

On May 10, 1610, the two newly constructed boats departed Bermuda with all on board and arrived at Jamestown in Virginia eleven days later. What they found there was that the colonists in Jamestown were starving to death due to their inability and in some cases unwillingness to produce food. They were afraid to go outside their fort so were tearing down their houses for firewood. They were not planting crops, nor trading with the Indians or catching fish. Much of this had to do with some settlers feeling it was beneath their dignity to work and the violent abuse they gave the local Indians which caused much enmity towards the English. At his arrival from Bermuda, Governor Gates estimated there was only days worth of food left, and decided to voyage to Newfoundland and from there find a ship heading for England. Just as they were preparing to depart, an English ship came into the harbor with supplies and new settlers along with a new governor, Lord de la Warr. The colonists were forced to return and reestablish their fort, albeit reluctantly.

In England, William Shakespeare first presented The Tempest in November 1611, which is about a group of passengers being shipwrecked by a mighty storm. A subplot involves a character which could have been based on Stephen Hopkins.

Although he had been through all manner of hardships and trials in the New World, including shipwreck, sentenced to death with a last-minute pardon, went to Jamestown, Virginia where he labored for several years, when he learned of the planned Mayflower voyage to Northern Virginia to establish a colony, he signed on to go to America along with his family.

Stephen Hopkins was a member of the early Mayflower exploratory parties while the ship was anchored in the Cape Cod area. As he was well-versed in the hunting techniques and general lifestyle of American Indians from his years in Jamestown Virginia, which was later found to be quite useful to the Pilgrim leadership.

Elizabeth had already died when her husband Stephen wrote his will on June 6, 1644 as in it he asks to be buried next to his deceased wife Elizabeth.

Author Caleb Johnson believes she had died prior to the Mayflower sailing. This theory is given credence by the fact that Hopkins and his second wife Elizabeth also had a daughter named Elizabeth, born about 1632.

I've also removed the following paragraph: The English in Jamestown and those later in Plymouth Colony were the antithesis of each other — with those in Virginia composed of titled leaders who were in charge of often inexperienced settlers and soldiers who were veterans of European wars, such as Capt. John Smith. All at Jamestown were focused on returning a profit to their London investors, and under great stress when no gold, minerals or anything else of much value to London was found in the Chesapeake area. The colonists could not/would not farm, tried to barter for food with the Indians and later stole food from them, leading to much violence, which continued for years.&lt;ref name="Tee"&gt;Tee Loftin Snell, The Wild Shores: America's Beginnings. National Geographic Society. (c. 1973 NGS) Chpt. 4 pp. 83–85&lt;/ref&gt;

because it doesn't have anything to do with Hopkins. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:51, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * You're wrong about the source being unreliable. Quoting the policy you've cited, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." When the New England Historic Genealogical Society—certainly such a reliable third-party entity—published Mr. Johnson's article on another Mayflower passenger in the Fall 2010 edition of their periodical American Ancestry, it gave a brief bio: "Caleb H. Johnson is an active Mayflower historian and genealogist. He has authored several books including The Mayflower and Her Passengers, and Here Shall I Die Ashore, a biography of Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins. Mr. Johnson edited an edition of William Bradford's classic Of Plymouth Plantation, and a limited-run 1,200-page reference volume, The Complete Works of the Mayflower Passengers. He has written numerous articles for The American Genealogist and the Mayflower Quarterly, and he discovered the English origins of Mayflower passengers Stephen Hopkins, Peter Browne, and John Hooke, as well as John Crackstone and Thomas Williams. He also writes and maintains the MayflowerHistory.com website."  He's pretty much the foremost expert on Mayflower genealogy, and is acknowledged as such an authority in other NEGHS publications (and by TAG and MQ, which also published his work in this field). - Nunh-huh 19:18, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Have any of his books been published by real publishers rather than by Xlibris? If he's the foremost expert on Mayflower genealogy, why does he have to rely on self-publication? NEHGS itself publishes books, you'd think they'd publish his if they consider him an authority in the field. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:51, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe he didn't offer NEGHS the opportunity. They've published his articles, The American Genealogist has published his articles; Mayflower Quarterly has published his articles. He's a recognized expert in this subject, has been published by reliable 3rd parties. His self-published works certainly qualify under our policies, whether or not NEHGS was involved with his books or not. The market for scholarly genealogical works is such that Doubleday and Scribner's aren’t going to be the ones publishing them. I suspect he's found that he's best rewarded for his efforts by self-publishing. His expertise is recognized by the genealogical community, and his research is cited in works over which he exercises no editorial or publishing authority. Here, for example, is what Nathaniel Philbrick writes in Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War: "…Robert Anderson's…The Pilgrim Migration..incorporates important new research, such as Caleb Johnson's "The Ture History of Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower:". - Nunh-huh 22:16, 25 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Caleb Johnson has also been published many times in the Mayflower Descendant and the Mayflower Quarterly and elsewhere. Here are some examples:
 * The Mayflower Quarterly, "The hunt for the English origins of George Soule", by Caleb Johnson,(Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co.), vol. 75, no. 3, September 2009, pp. 245-261.
 * The Mayflower Quarterly, "Research into the Possible English Origins of Mary Buckett Wife of Mayflower Passenger George Soule", December 2013,(Plymouth, MA.: The General Society of Mayflower Descendants), by Caleb Johnson, vol. 79, no. 4, pp. 313, 314
 * Caleb Johnson, The Mayflower Quarterly, vol. 75, no. 1, March 2009, "Hanged for Adultery: The Untold Story of Mayflower Passenger William Lathan's wife Mary".
 * Smith, John. Letter to Queen Anne. 1616. Repr. as 'John Smith's Letter to Queen Anne regarding Pocahontas'. Caleb Johnson's Mayflower Web Pages. 1997. Accessed 23 April 2006.
 * Winslow, Edward (2003). Johnson, Caleb, ed. "Hypocrisy Unmasked" (PDF). MayflowerHistory.com. Retrieved 2008-11-28.
 * Johnson, Caleb (2007). "Famous Descendants of Mayflower Passengers – Mayflower Ancestry of Lindy Boggs". MayflowerHistory.com. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
 * Johnson, Caleb (2007). "Famous Descendants of Mayflower Passengers – Mayflower Ancestry of Zachary Taylor". MayflowerHistory.com. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
 * Mayflower Quarterly, vol. 78, no. 1, March 2012, An investigation into the origins of Alice wife of William Mullins by Caleb H. Johnson, pp. 44-57
 * I will gather more of those articles as I have time.Mugginsx (talk) 13:51, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I have been given permission to restore all of the references attributed to Caleb Johnson by both administrators. To verify, please see their talk pages and also my own.  Thank you. Mugginsx (talk) 16:08, 1 October 2014 (UTC)


 * To be clear, it's not a matter of "permission"; what has happened is that all three participants in this discussion have agreed that the sources, though self-published, can be used, as Caleb Johnson is an expert who has been published by others on this subject. - Nunh-huh 17:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that clarification. Mugginsx (talk) 18:03, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, the fact that Nunh-huh and I are both admins has nothing to do with anything. Admins have more technical abilities (e.g. to delete and restore pages, to lock and unlock pages, to block and unblock users, etc.), but no more authority regarding content than anyone else. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:39, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Understood. Thank you. Mugginsx (talk) 13:43, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 3 one external links on Stephen Hopkins (Mayflower passenger). Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110816072529/http://www.americanancestors.org:80/pilgrim-families-stephen-hopkins/ to http://www.americanancestors.org/pilgrim-families-stephen-hopkins/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110816072529/http://www.americanancestors.org:80/pilgrim-families-stephen-hopkins/ to http://www.americanancestors.org/pilgrim-families-stephen-hopkins/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20111102200256/http://www.plimoth.org/media/pdf/hopkins_stephen.pdf to http://www.plimoth.org/media/pdf/hopkins_stephen.pdf

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 3 one external links on Stephen Hopkins (Mayflower passenger). Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20061219174404/http://www.pilgrimhall.org:80/hopkinsstephen.htm to http://www.pilgrimhall.org/hopkinsstephen.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070220152246/http://www.pilgrimhall.org:80/hopkinsstephenrecords.htm to http://www.pilgrimhall.org/hopkinsstephenrecords.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060905064653/http://etext.virginia.edu/users/deetz/Plymouth/shopkinswill.html to http://etext.virginia.edu/users/deetz/Plymouth/shopkinswill.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 02:56, 14 February 2016 (UTC)