Life Passages
One Family’s Story
Stephen Hopkins was baptized on April 30, 1581 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire County, England. He married Mary Kent in England around 1603. The Hopkinses lived in Hursley, Hampshire County by May 1604 when their first daughter Mary was baptized. Stephen and Mary would have two more children together. Stephen Hopkins departed Hursley in 1608, leaving his family behind. He might have been the Stephen Hopkins who was shipwrecked off Bermuda in 1609 aboard the Sea Venture, and then was away in Virginia for some years. The Sea Venture wreck was one of the inspirations for Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. His wife, Mary, died in Hursley in May 1613. Her estate inventory referred to a shop. By February 1618, Stephen Hopkins was living in London, because he married Elizabeth Fisher on February 19, 1618 at St. Mary Matfelon, Whitechapel, London. They would have six children together.
Stephen and Elizabeth Hopkins came to New England aboard the Mayflower in 1620, along with children Constance, Giles, and Damaris; and two manservants Edward Dotey and Edward Leister. Elizabeth Hopkins was in advanced pregnancy at sailing and gave birth to her son Oceanus during the Mayflower crossing. Stephen Hopkins and his two manservants signed the Mayflower Compact. Stephen Hopkins was active in the first years of Plymouth Colony, serving several times as emissary to Massasoit. He was a freeman of the colony and served as Governor’s Assistant from 1633-1636. Though a man of social standing, in the 1630s, Hopkins was presented in court and fined for wounding John Tisdale, allowing drinking and playing “shovel-board” at his house on the Lord’s day, for “suffering excessive drinking in his house” and for “selling beer for two pennies the quart, not worth one penny the quart.”
Stephen Hopkins died in Plymouth between June 6 and July 17, 1644. Elizabeth died before her husband, passing away in the early 1640s. His will requested, “my body to be buried as near as conveniently may be to my wife deceased…”
Death
Death was part of everyday life for 16th and 17th-century men and women. On the one hand death was a joyful for God’s children, a release from the sin and misery of human existence. On the other hand death was a punishment brought into the world by original sin and therefore was hateful and fearful. And of course, for those not among God’s chosen, death meant eternal damnation. This latter possibility caused more torment for Puritans than for most Anglicans. Though predestination was one of the Church of England’s articles of faith, they did not dwell on the point that most of human kind was not destined for salvation. The funeral service in the Book of Common Prayer tended more towards the hope of eternal life than the terror of damnation. Although tormented self-examination and doubt about salvation is more a mark of late 17th-century New England Puritans, the idea was not unknown earlier in the century. However, writings by John Robinson, William Bradford, and Robert Cushman indicate that Plymouth’s Separatists maintained a Pauline “hope of assurance” of the salvation of their fellow Christians.