Some Hopkins Family History

Jimmy Boles, the great grandson of Cyrus Booher Parrigin, and my second cousin once removed, who was born in New Castle, Indiana but raised in Clinton County, Kentucky, once wrote that his great aunt, Elizabeth Jane Mackey Hopkins, was a woman of great fortitude and courage, undaunted when faced with superior forces. During the Civil War, with her husband, George Wash­ington Hopkins away from home serving with the home guard, Champ Fer­guson and his men rode up to the Hopkins homestead, which was located near Mountain View Park. Already known for robbing and looting at will, Champ was in the process of stealing a horse and was unhitching it from a plow when Elizabeth, came out of the house with a gun and fired one shot, which hit the beam of the plow. She then ordered Champ Ferguson and his men to leave the property. Overwhel­med by a brave and determined woman, Champ retreated as ordered, without the horse or any other property belonging to the Hopkins family. Washington's tombstone says he was a member of Seventy Six Church for 58 years. His grandfather, Elijah, was the first deacon there.

"THE MAYFLOWER KETTLE"

Speaking of property belonging to the Hopkins family, both Ella Nunn, in her book, "Things I Remember About Clinton County," and Jack Ferguson, in his book, "Early Times in Clinton County," both wrote that a Hopkins ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, was a passenger on the Mayflower when it departed for the new world in 1620. When it landed in America, Stephen carried with him an iron kettle that had been used as a churn on the voyage to America. When the Pilgrims celebrated their Thanksgiving it was used to help cook the first Thanksgiving dinner in America.

Supposedly, the kettle remained in the Hopkins family and was handed down to the oldest son from generation to generation and was eventually inherited by John R. Hopkins, who lived in Clinton County and is buried at Albany Cemetery. It is said that Scott W. Dowell, clerk at Clear Fork Baptist Church, certified on paper that he knew John R. Hopkins when he was a member of the church, and had heard him talk about the kettle. Boles wrote that when John died the kettle was passed on to a Bob Hopkins, who lived in Texas and that Ammazoo Hopkins of Midwest City, Oklahoma had relayed this story to him. Another story Boles said was that an old kettle that sat in the old Albany Bank in the 1920's was the kettle that came from the Mayflower.

The photo is only a representation of a kettle brought over on the Mayflower.