Anne Smith Hopkins
Wife of Stephen Hopkins, Signer of the Declaration of Independence
1717 – 1782 A.D.

Mrs. Anne Smith, the second wife of Stephen Hopkins, was the daughter of Benjamin Smith, of Providence, the same name that borne by her first husband though there was no relationship. She was a descendant, in the fourth generation, from John Smith, one of the four associates of roger Williams, on his journey from Massachusetts, in 1683.

Her marriage to Mr. Hopkins took place in 1755 in the Friends’ Meeting-House in Smithfield, and the certificate, bearing the signatures of the bride, bridegroom, and witnesses, is still preserved in the collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society. She was thirty-eight years old at the time of her marriage, and brought with her three living children, Benjamin, Ruth, and Amery. It is said that Mr. Hopkins became very fond of his stepchildren as they did of him. Ruth Smith afterward married George Hopkins, the son of her stepfather, and Benjamin married Mary Tillinghast, a stepdaughter of Mr. Hopkins’s daughter Lydia.

A few months after their marriage, Mr. Hopkins was elected Governor of the Province and he continue in one office or another almost continuously until his death in 1785. His wife died two years before him.

~*~

The Pioneer Mothers of America: A Record of the More Notable Women of the Early Days of the Country, and Particularly of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods by Harry Clinton Green and Mary Wolcott Green, A.B. Third Volume, Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.