Charles Hopkins

Charles Hopkins, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Charles A. Hopkins

1810-1863

Biographical Sketch

Early Life in New Jersey

Charles A. Hopkins was born in 1810 to Daniel and Ann Simpson Hopkins in Burlington, Burlington County, New Jersey. He was the seventh of ten children. Burlington is on the Delaware River, upstream of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and downstream from Trenton, New Jersey. His forebears had been in Monmouth County, New Jersey for several generations. Monmouth was named after Monmouthshire in Wales. Burlington was a corruption of Bridlington in Yorkshire. The original settlers of Monmouth County were Quakers or immigrants from Yorkshire. Hopkins's biographer opined that his English forebears may have been Quakers. But little is know of Hopkins early life in New Jersey.

In 1833, Hopkins married Ann Steel (c. 1813-1837) in Philadelphia and the following year his first son was born. Around 1837, Anne died in childbirth. The same year, Hopkins became acquainted with the incipient Mormon Church and tax records indicate that he purchased land in Kirtland, Ohio, one of the first Mormon communities. He traveled to Nauvoo, Illinois where he was baptized into the Mormon Church in 1844. In 1846, he married Lydia Okie Van Dyke (1803-1859) in Philadelphia. Between 1840 and 1846, he lived in Indiana and Illinois.

With the Mormon Battalion and onto Utah

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Detail of the route of Mormon Battalion from Illinois to Nebraska. Some in the sick detachment went from there directly to Pueblo, Colorado; others like Charles Hopkins went to Santa Fe, New Mexico before traveling to Colorado and then to the valley of the Great Salt Lake.

Hopkins experienced the "Mormon War" of 1844-45 and the expulsion of the Mormons in 1846 from western Illinois to Iowa Territory. In the summer of that year, he and other Mormon men were recruited to enlist in the so-called Mormon Battalion. Hopkins was a private in Company E under the command of Captain Daniel C. Davis. During the Battalion's service in 1846-1848, it undertook a historic trek from Iowa to California. Their arrival coincided with the outbreak of the Mexican-American War and they helped secure California for the United States.

But Hopkins's journey with the Battalion only took him as far as Santa Fe, New Mexico. Weak from illness, he was assigned to a sick detachment which traveled north to the headwaters of the Arkansas River at Pueblo in present-day Colorado. There they passed the winter in hastily constructed cabins. In summer 1847, Hopkins and his companions were discharged from the battalion and they traveled north to Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Finding that Brigham Young's Pioneer Camp had passed only days before, they headed west in pursuit of the company. They arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake on July 27, 1847, three days behind the pioneer company. In August, Hopkins departed Great Salt Lake Valley for Iowa Territory to rejoin his family. They spent two years there preparing and recruiting before making the journey to Great Salt Lake City in 1849 In the Ezra T. Benson wagon company.

With the Southern Exploring Expedition to Southern Utah

Hopkins was part of the Southern Exploring Expedition to southern Utah in the winter of 1849-1850. En route, they traveled through Utah Valley including the future site of Lehi where Hopkins would later settle for a time. They skirted through the pass into Sanpete County and along the Sevier River (modern highway 89). They experienced great privations in their December crossing in heavy snows from the Sevier River over what is now known as the Fremont Pass into the valley of the LIttle Salt Lake. Hopkins was in the mounted party that continued onto southwestern Utah to explore its possibilities for settlement. On the return trip, when the teams bogged down in snow near Fillmore, Hopkins was again part of a mounted party which rode ahead to scout the trail.

An Original Settler in Lehi in Utah Valley

However, Hopkins did not remain in southern Utah as one of the original "iron missionaries." Instead, in 1850, he returned north to Utah Valley. Hopkins, along with William Riggs, Joel White, White's brothers Samuel and John, and others, settled on an intermittent stream which they named Dry Creek at the northern end of Utah Lake. This rude settlement later was known as Lehi and was recognized as a fertile farming district. It was located 30 miles south of Great Salt Lake City and a mile north of Utah Lake.

Hopkins and the others built the first cabins to form three sides of a fort on Snow Springs. The "fort" enclosed the spring but in the early years there were insufficient settlers to build the cabins along the fourth wall to make an enclosed fort. In spring 1851, they cleared fields and planted crops, Then, to insure a continual supply of water, they spent from May through August building a seven-mile irrigation ditch from the mouth of American Fork canyon to their new settlement. Working at an average rate of a rod (16 1/2') per day, they completed the project just in time to save a portion of their crops. Bishop David Evans selected Hopkins was one of his counselors. In 1852, Hopkins entered into polygamy by marrying Mary Ann Edds Skinner (1825-1903) of Devonshire, England, a widow with a son.

In 1853, they held the first municipal election in Lehi and Hopkins and several others acted as clerks to oversee the results. The same year, the territorial legislature granted Hopkins and his business partners a license to build a toll bridge over the Jordan River crossing. They built the bridge which was a benefit to travelers as well as a commercial success for its builders. In the same year, Hopkins was elected alderman in Lehi and his wife Mary Ann bore their first child.

The Walker War erupted in summer 1853 and the conflict was particularly intense in Utah County. The pioneering settlers abandoned exposed settlements, made fortifications, guarded settlements and livestock and after their stock had been raided by Ute Indians, went in pursuit of it. Hopkins would have played some part in these events. The sharp conflict in Utah Valley may have impacted his later decision to relocate to other parts. He retired his community positions at the end of 1853, presumably around the time that he decided to relocate to southern Utah.

Moving to Cedar City and the Iron Works

The Early Ironworks in Cedar City

The Early Ironworks in Cedar City.]] For reasons perhaps connected with the intense conflict with the Ute Indians in Utah Valley, the Hopkins decided to move to Cedar City in the southern territory. Of course, Hopkins was already familiar with the area, having visited it in 1849-50 as part of Parley P. Pratt's exploration party. Hopkins joined in the efforts to make a subsistence living while the community also built an ironworks there. After they moved from the original fort to Plat A, Hopkins owned a lot next door to Isaac C. Haight. This was only a temporary location. By 1855, they had laid out Plat B, which was southeast of Plat A and nearer the foothills. Hopkins owned two lots in Plat B. Over the next ten years, Mary Ann bore him four additional children.

The Deseret Iron Company

In moving to Cedar City, Hopkins had settled in an area dominated by the Deseret Iron Company, known more familiarly as the Ironworks. See Summary of Deseret Iron Company for a brief summary of its early development.

The Ironworks in 1857

In April 1857, the delivery of a new steam engine from Great Salt Lake City seemed to breathe new life for the Ironworks. After its arrival, they built a new room to house the engine, connected its boiler to a steady water supply and modified the furnace to accommodate the engine. Many settlers in Cedar City worked long hours in the Ironworks. In early June they started an iron run using the steam engine. However, the new machinery created its own set of problems. Through the end of July, they experimented with different configurations of furnace, engine and piping, attempting to optimize the blast furnace. In August, they installed a reservoir to provided filtered water to the steam engine to improve its performance. From late August to early September, shortly before the crisis involving the passing Arkansas emigrant company, they began a new furnace run. But it, too, ended in failure, probably around the time that a dispute arose between some community members and several of those in the passing Arkansas wagon train.

However, other than some small transactions at the company store, the Deseret Iron Company's ledger is silent on Charles Hopkins for this period. It appears that he may have pursued farming and livestock raising and left the Ironworks to the specialists from the British Isles. At any rate, during this time of intense activity at the Ironworks in mid-1857, there is no evidence that Hopkins played a role.

In the Iron Military District: Private Charles Hopkins, Company D, Isaac Haight's 2nd Battalion

Map southern utah 1.jpg

In 1857, the Iron Military District consisted of four battalions led by regimental commander Col. William H. Dame. The platoons and companies in the first battalion drew on men in and around Parowan. (It had no involvement at Mountain Meadows.) Major Isaac Haight commanded the 2nd Battalion whose personnel in its many platoons and two companies came from Cedar City and outer-lying communities to the north such as Fort Johnson. Major John Higbee headed the 3rd Battalion whose many platoons and two companies were drawn from Cedar City and outer-lying communities to the southwest such as Fort Hamilton. Major John D. Lee of Fort Harmony headed the 4th Battalion whose platoons and companies drew on its militia personnel from Fort Harmony, the Southerners at the newly-founded settlement in Washington, the Indian interpreters at Fort Clara, and the new settlers at Pinto.

In September 1857, Hopkins was a private in a platoon in Captain Joel White's Company D, which was attached to Major Isaac C. Haight's 2nd Battalion in the Iron Military District. See A Basic Account for a full description of the massacre.

At age 47, Hopkins was among the more senior militiamen recruited to Mountains Meadows after the initial attack on the wagon train on Monday the 7th. According to John D. Lee, Charles Hopkins was on the Cedar City high council and was among those who arrived at Mountain Meadows with a detachment from Cedar City.

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Charles A. Hopkins

According to Samuel Pollock, Nephi Johnson and John D. Lee, Hopkins was at Mountain Meadows and attended the decisive military council on Thursday the 10th. Lee maintains that as he agonized over the fate of the emigrant train, he and Hopkins consulted together.

Hopkins' exact role in the massacre on Friday, September 11, is unknown. However, as a member of the Cedar City detachment, he probably was in the guard unit that walked beside the emigrant men as they walked northward from the protection of their wagon circle to meet their fate. As the massacre commenced, the duty of the guards was to wheel and fire on the emigrant men, quickly dispatching them. Yet during the actual massacre, reactions varied among the guards. Some shrank from their duty, others fired over the heads of their victims, while others still undertook their bloody duty with zeal. Within minutes, members of the Cedar City unit had killed all but three of the emigrant men. However, whether Hopkins was in this guard unit and if so, how he acted during the massacre will probably never be known with any certainty.

Back in Cedar City, Charles Hopkins and one of his wives took in one of the surviving children from the massacre. They cared for the child until U.S. Indian Superintendent Jacob Forney retrieved the surviving children in spring 1857 and returned them to Arkansas.

Moving North to Beaver County

In 1859, Hopkins was listed in the arrest warrant that Judge John Cradlebaugh had issued. Spurred by the threat of arrest as well as the collapse of the iron-based economy in Cedar City, Hopkins and his family departed Cedar City. In the same year, his second wife Lydia Hopkins died. With his remaining wife Mary Ann and family, Hopkins headed north to Beaver.

Map of Millard County, Utah.

Relocating to Millard County

After several years, the Hopkins and two other families moved farther north to found Petersburg (Kanosh), in Millard County. Later they moved to Hatton, Millard County, where they settled and he began homesteading. One account states that in 1863, Hopkins would cut posts by day, then clear his land and install fencing by night. Perhaps because of the combined effects of overwork and exposure, Hopkins took sick and died in October of that year, leaving five children under ten years of age. He was buried in Fillmore, Millard County.

Charles Hopkins did not live to see the 1870s when the growing interest and controversy surrounding the massacre led to the arrest of some of the principal militiamen and the trial, conviction and execution of John D. Lee. However, Lee mentioned Hopkins by name in his account of the massacre in Lee's Mormonism Unveiled.

References

Bagley, Blood of the Prophets, 133, 158, 178; Bennion, Charles Hopkins 1810-1863, [etc.] ; Bigler and Bagley, Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives, 70 fn. 14, 235, 324, 345, 396; Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, 82, 161, 179, 193; Brooks, ed., Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, 117; Carter, Our Pioneer Heritage, 11:409; Day, MIlestones of Millard, 340 (bio); Fish, Mormon Migrations, 409; Fleek, History May be Searched in Vain: A Military History of the Mormon Battalion ; Gardner, History of Lehi, 17, 22, 23, 35, 51, 53, 55, 124 (sic), 238, 239; Huff, Utah County Centennial History, 234, 239, 247, 256; Jenson, Encyclopedic History of the Church, 424 (Lehi); Lee Trials transcripts; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled, 230, 232, 233, 234, 247, 379; Lyman, A History of Millard County, 37, 99; Membership Records of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint, 1830-1848; New.FamilySearch.org; Shirts and Shirts, A Trial Furnace, 10, 62 fn. 66, 331, 476-77, 488, 494; Smart and Smart, ed., Over the Rim, 12, 82, 92, 94, 99, 128, 137, 169, 223-24 (bio and photo); Turley and Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: Jenson and Morris Collections, 223, 248, 254; Tyler, A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion [etc.]; Van Wagoner, Lehi: Portraits of a Utah Town, 2, 3, 4, 41, 90, 383, 400, 409; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, 167, 173, 187, 219, Appendix C, 258; Young, “The Spirit of the Pioneers,” Utah Historical Quarterly, 14/1-4 (1946), 16.

For full bibliographic information see Bibliography.

External Links

For a biography of Charles Hopkins by an admiring descendant, see:

• http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/FH30&CISOPTR=22350&CISOSHOW=22349

For further information on Charles Hopkins, see:

• http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.org/appendices/appendix-c-the-militiamen
• Deseret Iron Company Account Book, 1854-1867: http://www.footnote.com/document/241905844/

Further information and confirmation needed. Please contact editor@1857ironcountymilitia.com.