Family Beginnings in England

The earliest Hopkins I know of in my line is William Hopkins (1634-1705), a gardener and a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in St. George's Parish, Southwark, Surrey. He was a member of the Southwark Friends Meeting and the Vintner's Company of London. He married Katherine ---- (1646-1704) by 1669.

Old Southwark Houses

According to two secondary sources, both William and Katherine were born in Northamptonshire, but I've been unable to find any citations or source records to verify this. I'm continuing to look, and hope to find proof some day. A number of other families who emigrated to Haddonfield, New Jersey had roots in Northamptonshire, including the French, Gill, and Haddon families.

William and Katherine had eleven children, of whom only four lived into maturity. William was born in 1670, and was said to be living in Buckinghamshire in his father's 1705 will. He was a shop keeper in Wooburn, Bucks, and died there about 1747. Abraham (1676-1700) died young and apparently without marrying. Sarah (1678-1742) married Thomas Fellows in 1701 and had nine children.

Benjamin (1685-1730), the youngest of William and Katherine's sons to survive, married Sarah Haddon (1687-1758) in the Horseleydown Meeting on 29th day, 6th month, 1706. The Quaker records describe both Benjamin and his father as members of the Vintners Guild and as gardeners. Benjamin and Sarah had twelve children, eight of whom died in infancy or childhood. Mary married Edward Butcher, a tallow chandler, in 1729 at Horselydown Meeting. Sarah lived for a time in West Jersey with her Aunt and Uncle. She later married a man named Simpson, and was mentioned in family wills, but I've found no other information about her. Elizabeth married a Quaker named Joseph Etherington. Haddon (1715-1757) married three times: to the widow Judith Swainson in 1742, to Ann Arnold in 1746, and to Mary Hoare in 1752. He and Mary had a daughter Ann and a son, Benjamin. The youngest son of Benjamin and Sarah, Ebenezer (1718-1757), became the first of my Hopkins line to settle in America.

John Haddon (1653-1724) was a blacksmith and anchor maker in Rotherhithe, which was near the docks and shipyards along the Thames River. In a 1909 letter to his cousin Rebecca Nicholson Taylor, Samuel Nicholson Rhoads says that the Haddons lived first on Jacobs Street, Bermondsey, in "Jacobs Island" before moving downriver to Rotherhithe, where John's anchor smithy was located at the corner of West Street and Rotherhithe Street.

Silhouette of John Haddon. See Others and notes.

He was born in Northamptonshire, the son of Matthew Haddon and his wife Phillipia (Marriott) of Hardingstone. He was born on December 13, 1653 and baptised at the Parish church. He married Elizabeth Clarke (1650-1723) 3rd day, 6th month, 1676 in the Horseleydown Meeting in Southwark. Their daughter Sarah married Benjamin Hopkins and their elder daughter Elizabeth (1680-1762) went to America and married John Estaugh (1676-1742) in 1702.

Other families in my ancestry who came from England include the Lords and the Woods. The Lord family came from Lancashire, as did the Wood family. They were also members of the Friends and migrated to West Jersey in America to become part of William Penn's experiment there. The move to America offered them religious freedom and economic opportunities not available to them in England.

In previous versions of this page, I mentioned the Boone family of Devon. I have since learned that my Boone ancestors were not related to these Boones, as I had thought. DNA tests have proved that my Boones were from an entirely different line, the origins of which have not yet been discovered.

Next: Emigration to West Jersey

See also these pages related to the Hopkins and Haddon families, and those families they intermarried with:

This file was last updated on 9/20/2011.