Steven Hopkins
Came over on the Mayflower. Called a tanner or leatherman at the time of the Mayflower voyage.
Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower
Stephen Hopkins was born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and came of age as England was experiencing great economic growth, increased overseas exploration, and a renaissance in the arts. Stephen was among the new class of Englishmen who left the countryside for London to become merchants, seamen, or settlers in the New World, but his adventuresome nature would eventually put him in a class by himself.
He was one of the first in Bermuda, where he survived shipwreck, mutiny, and near execution earning satirization in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. He was one of the first in Jamestowne, the earliest permanent European settlement in North America, where he faced starvation, disease, and Indian attack. And sailing on the Mayflower, he was one of the first in New England, where he used his previous New World experience to shape the history of Plymouth Plantation.
In Hopkins of the Mayflower, Margaret Hodges writes, "Adventurers like Stephen broke the chains that bound Englishmen to a fixed and unalterable state of life in a fixed and unalterable society. In their ships they carried . . . ideas, planting the seeds of economic, social, and ethical thought that are with us yet."
