Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/283

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HOPKINS
HOPKINS
255


scarcely five months later. He was architect of a new building for Trinity church, and presented 137 candidates for confirmation at Bishop White's only visitation beyond the mountains in 1825. In 1826 he would have been elected assistant bishop of Pennsylvania but for his peremptory refusal to vote for himself. During the seven years of his rectorship he founded seven other churches in western Pennsylvania, and brought seven young men into the ministry, besides three others that were ordained shortly after he left. His desire to found a theological seminary at Pittsburg was not approved by his bishop, and when he was invited to Boston as assistant minister of Trinity church, and to help in founding a seminary there, he ac- cepted, and left Pittsburg in 1831. In 1832 he was elected the first bishop of Vermont, and was con- secrated on 31 Oct. He soon established the Ver- mont Episcopal institute at Burlington, but the financial panic of 1837-'8 ended the work in dis- aster, leaving him penniless. From the beginning of his episcopate he was also rector of St. Paul's church, Burlington, and so continued for twenty- seven years. The building was twice enlarged in accordance with his designs. In 1854 he revived Vermont Episcopal institute, raising the money by personal solicitation, and left it solidly established. On the death of Bishop Brownell in 1865 he be- came the seventh presiding bishop of his church in the United States, and as such attended the first Lambeth conference in 1867 — an assembly which he had been the first to suggest as early as 1851 — and took an active part in its most important de- liberations. Shortly after his return he died after an illness of two days, which was brought on by exposure to severe weather in holding a visita- tion, at the request of the Bishop of New York, in Plattsburg. Bishop Hopkins was an accom- plished painter, both in water-color and in oils, a musician and composer, a poet, and an architect, having been one of the first to introduce Gothic architecture into this country. He was an extem- poraneous speaker of great readiness, force, and fluency ; but was specially remarkable for a singu- lar independence of character, being perfectly will- ing to stand alone when he felt convinced that he was in the right. He was a voluminous author, beginning in his fortieth year. Among his works are " Christianitv Vindicated " (New York, 1833) ; "The Primitive" Creed " (1834); "The Primitive Church" (1835); "Essay on Gothic Architecture," with plates (1836) ; " The Church of Rome in her Primitive Purity compared with the Church of Rome at the Present Day " (1837) ; " Twelve Can- zonets," words and music (1839) : two " Letters to Bishop Kenrick" (1843); "The Novelties which disturb our Peace" (1844); "The History of the Confessional" (1850); "The End of Controversy Controverted," a refutation of Milner's "End of Controversy " (3 vols., 1854) ; " The American Citi- zen" (1857); "A Scriptural, Historical, and Ec- clesiastical View of Slavery " (1864) ; " The Law of Ritualism" (1866); "The History of the Church in Verse " (1867) ; " The Pope not" the Antichrist " S868); and many pamphlets. — His son, John Henry, clergyman, b. in Pittsburg, Pa., 28 Oct., 1820; d. near Hudson, N. Y., 23 Aug., 1891, was graduated in 1839, and at the General theological seminary, New York city, in 1850. He was ordained deacon in the Protestant Episcopal church in 1850, founded the " Church Journal " in February, 1853, and was its editor and proprietor till May, 1868. He took an active part in the erection of the dio- cese of Pittsburg in 1865, and those of Albany and Long Island in 1868, and in 1867 accompanied his father to the Lambeth conference. He was or* dained priest in 1872, became in that year rector of Trinity church, Plattsburg, N. Y., and in 1876 of Christ church, Williamsport, Pa. Racine college gave him the degree of D. D. in 1873. Dr. Hop- kins was the author of many pamphlets and re- view articles ; published a life of his father (1868) ; " The Canticles Noted " (New York, 1866) ; " Car- ols, Hvmns, and Songs " (4th ed., 1887) ; and " Poem's by the Wayside " (1883) ; and edited his father's "The Pope not the Antichrist " (1863); "The Collected Works of Milo Mahan," with a memoir (3 vols., 1875) ; and " The Great Hymns of the Church," by Bishop Young, of Florida (1887). — Bishop Hopkins's second son, Edward Augustus, merchant, b. in Pittsburg, Pa., 29 Nov., 1822, after studying for one year in the University of Vermont, then for a few months in Kenyon col- lege, Ohio, entered the navy as a midshipman. After five years he resigned, and was appointed special commissioner to report whether the repub- lic of Paraguay was entitled to the recognition of her independence by the United States. On his favorable report, that independence was recognized, and he was sent as the first U. S. consul at Asun- cion, Paraguay, in 1853, being at the same time general agent of an American company for manu- facturing and mercantile purposes. The act of the Paraguayan government in breaking up this company in September, 1854, was one of the causes of the U. S. expedition against Paraguay not long afterward. Mr. Hopkins was the first to introduce into the La Plata valley saw-mills, rail- roads, and telegraphs, and for more than a quarter of a century he has been the chief advocate of American influence there. He prepared the book of statistics for the Argentine Republic that ac- companied their contribution to the Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and through his agency many of the features of the educa- tional and land systems of the United States have been introduced into the Argentine Republic. — Another son, Caspar Thomas, journalist, b. in Alleghany City, Pa., 18 May, 1826, was graduated at the University of Vermont in 1847, and the same year established " The Vermont State Agri- culturist." He went to California in 1849, and in 1861 established the California insurance company, the first insurance company on the Pacific coast, was its secretary till 1866, and afterward its presi- dent till 1884, when he retired on account of im- paired health. He was secretary of the San Fran- cisco chamber of commerce from 1868 till 1870, and was one of its principal organizers. He was promoter and president of the California immi- grant union in 1870; has been president of the Pacific social science association of San Francisco, secretary of the first musical society on the Pacific coast, and was the first organist who ever took charge of a Protestant choir in California. In ad- dition to numerous magazine articles and pam- phlets, he published a "Manual of American Ideas" (1872).— Another son, Charles Jerome, musician, b. in Burlington, Vt., 4 April. 1836, was educated at home, and passed one year at the Uni- versity of Vermont. He early developed a talent for music, but, with the exception of home in- struction, was self-taught. He was for five years a professor at Cooper Union, New York city, and for twenty-eight years an organist and choir-mas- ter in Burlington and New York city. He has trav- elled extensively throughout the United States, and has given concerts and lecture-concerts in one hun- dred and twelve cities. He founded the New York orpheon free classes for choir-boys in 1866, origi-