HOPKINS.
As early as 1732, Dr. Arthur Hopkins, who resided on one
of the branches of Byrd Creek in Goochland, obtained a
patent for four hundred acres where Milton now stands, another
in 1748 for nearly twenty-three hundred on Totier Creek,
and a third in 1765 for fourteen hundred and seventeen between
Hardware and Totier, which had been granted to Hardin
Burnley, but forfeited for failure to pay the quit rents.
He died in 1766. He and his wife Elizabeth had eight children,
Samuel, John, Arthur, William, James, Lucy, the wife
of George Robinson, of Pittsylvania, Mary, the wife of
Joseph Cabell, and Isabel.
Samuel married Isabella Taylor, a cousin of President
Madison's grandmother, and of President Taylor's grandfather,
and an aunt of John Taylor, of Caroline. Their son
Samuel was Lieutenant Colonel of the Tenth Virginia in the
Revolution, and General in Kentucky in the war of 1812, for
whom Hopkins County and Hopkinsville in that State were
named. Arthur went to Kentucky, and died unmarried.
William lived in Albemarle on Totier. He married Elizabeth
daughter of Jacob Moon, and died in 1820. His
children were Ann, the wife of Peter Porter, who removed to
Missouri, Mildred, the wife of James Thomas, Jane, the
wife of Littleberry Moon, and mother of Samuel O. Moon,
Mary, Margaret, Isabel, the wife of Henry Turner, and
mother of the venerable William H. Turner, Elizabeth, the
wife of Jesse Haden, Samuel—the last two emigrated to
Kentucky—and William. William had his home in the
vicinity of Scottsville, married Rebecca Estis, and died in
1832. His children were Mary, the wife of Lain B. Jones,
Martha, the wife of John H. Henderson, James, and Margaret,
the wife of Moses Arnold.
James, the son of Dr. Arthur, was the accomplished physician
who settled in Nelson County, and as already narrated,
was basely murdered in 1803.
Mary, daughter of Mary Hopkins and Joseph Cabell, became
the wife of John Breckinridge, then of Botetourt County,
but subsequently United States Senator from Kentucky, and
Mr. Jefferson's Attorney General. Mr. Cabell, who had
bought the glebe of St. Anne's on the south fork of Totier,
presented it to his daughter, and there Mr. Breckinridge
made his residence from 1785 to 1793, when he removed to
Kentucky. During that time he was a member of the
Albemarle bar, and in 1792 in the interval between the
resignation of the first John Nicholas, and the appointment
of the second, as Clerk of the county, he acted as Clerk pro
tem. His two eldest children were born in Albemarle, one
of whom was the father of the Vice President.
