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REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER JAMES HOPKINS



BURIAL SITE:

Hopkins Cemetery, 2 & 3/4 miles northwest of Fair Play, Polk County, Missouri.

The cemetery is located in West Madison Township, Section 31, Township 34, Range 24 of Polk County. It is a fairly well-kept cemetery that has 57 marked graves in it. The cemetery is located about 2 & 3/4 miles northwest of Fair Play, Missouri, on Cave Springs Road on land which James Hopkins homesteaded in 1835.

If coming from the north, at Humansville, leave Highway 13 and take Highway 123 to Dunnegan (4.5 miles). Then go 5.4 more miles to Fairplay and go all the way to the south edge of town to the intersection of Highway 123 (South Poplar) and Highway 32 (East 1st).

If coming from the south, after reaching Bolivar, take Highway 32 west to Fair Play.

After reaching Fair Play, Missouri, from the intersection of Highway 32 (East 1st) and Highway 123 (South Poplar), go 3 blocks west and then turn right (north) at the third street. This is Walnut St. (formerly called Cave Springs Road).

Go past the Fair Play schoolhouse (on the left) and continue north past the First Missionary Baptist Church (on the right). After going north for about 3/4 miles, the street will turn left (west). Go another 2 miles west and there will be a large wooden sign on the left which says, "Hopkins Cemetery." Going left on a gravel road by this sign you will travel about 1/10 mile to the cemetery.

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TOMBSTONE INSCRIPTION FOR JAMES HOPKINS AT HOPKINS CEMETERY:

JAMES
HOPKINS
PARISH'S CO.
HUMPHREY'S
N.C. REGT.
REV. WAR


*James Hopkins' grave is located in the oldest part of the cemetery, at the western edge.

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James Hopkins was born June 17, 1765 in Orange County, North Carolina. He was the son of William Hopkins and a grandson of James Hopkins who probably emigrated to Virginia from Wales and who died in Orange County, North Carolina in 1758/59.

When James Hopkins was 16 years old, in June 1781, he enlisted and served as a private under Captain Parish, Major Humphrey, and Colonel Thomas Farmer of the North Carolina Regiment and served during the greater part of the Revolutionary War. He was honorably discharged for disability received in the war.

About 1791, perhaps in Rowan County, North Carolina, James Hopkins was married to Peggy Woods, who died about 1793 or 1794. They had one daughter, Peggy.

James married a second wife, Elizabeth Billingsley, about 1795 in Rowan County, North Carolina. She was the daughter of Basil and Ruth (Smithson) Billingsley. James and Elizabeth had eight children.

About 1800 the Hopkins family moved to Sumner County (now Wilson County), Tennessee. In 1818 they moved to Jackson County, Illinois, and later back to Tennessee. They came to Greene County, Missouri, in 1833, but went back to Illinois and to Tennessee to live for awhile. Then in 1835 they settled in Madison Township in Polk County, Missouri.

Elizabeth Hopkins died in 1848 and is buried in the Hopkins Cemetery. For many years her grave was unmarked, but sometime after 1974, a new, flat stone was erected on her grave. The next year, 1849, James died and is also buried in the Hopkins Cemetery next to his wife. His grave marker from the U.S. Army Quartermaster General was dedicated by the Rachel Donelson Chapter DAR of Springfield on September 6, 1931. The Matilda Polk Campbell Chapter DAR of Bolivar and the Ozark Mountain Chapter SAR of Springfield conducted a joint grave marking ceremony on May 1, 2005.


(c) Copyright 1998-2005.

Last updated May 15, 2005.


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