Background
Hopkinson was born on September 21, 1737 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Thomas Hopkinson and Mary Johnson.
Hopkinson was born on September 21, 1737 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Thomas Hopkinson and Mary Johnson.
Hopkinson became a member of the first class at the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) in 1751 and graduated in 1757, receiving his master's degree in 1760, and a doctor in law in 1790.
Removing after 1768 to Bordentown, New Jersey, Hopkinson became a member of the council of that colony in 1774. On the approach of the War of Independence he identified himself with the patriot or whig element in the colony, and in 1776 and 1777 he was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He served on the committee appointed to frame the Articles of Confederation, executed, with John Nixon (1733-1808) and John Wharton, the ''business of the navy" under the direction of the marine committee, and acted for a time as treasurer of the Continental Loan Office. From 1779 to 1789 he was judge of the court of admiralty in Pennsylvania, and from 1790 until his death was United States district judge for that state. He was famous for his versatility, being a distinguished lawyer, jurist and political leader. It is as a writer, however, that he will be remembered. He ranks as one of the three leading satirists on the patriot side during the War of Independence. His ballad, The Battle of the Kegs (1778), was long exceedingly popular. To alarm the British force at Philadelphia the Americans floated kegs charged with gunpowder down the Delaware river towards that city, and the British, alarmed for the safety of their shipping, fired with cannon and small arms at everything they saw floating in the river. Hopkinson's ballad is an imaginative expansion of the actual facts. To the cause of the revolution this ballad was perhaps worth as much just then as the winning of a considerable battle. Hopkinson's principal writings are The Pretty Story (1774), A Prophecy (1776) and The Political Catechism (1777). Among his songs may be mentioned The Treaty and The New Roof, a Song for Federal Mechanics; and the best known of his satirical pieces are Typographical Method of conducting a Quarrel, Essay on White Washing and Modern Learning. His Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings were published at Philadelphia in 3 vols. , 1792.
Member of the Second Continental Congress, Member of the New Jersey Provincial Council
Hopkinson married Ann Borden on September 1, 1768. They would have five children. His son, Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842), was a Federalist member of the national House of Representatives in 1815-1819, Federal judge of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1828 until his death, and a member of the state constitutional convention of 1837.
Judge of the United States District Court