Part of the Indiana Biographies Project
R. R. Hopkins, M.D.
For the past twelve years this representative member of the medical profession of Wayne county has made his home in Richmond, where he enjoys an extensive and lucrative practice. He is a lineal descendant of the renowned Stephen Hopkins, who was one of the most ardent patriots at the time of the Revolutionary war, and one of the brave and honored men who affixed their signatures to that momentous document, the Declaration of Independence. From that time to the present the family have been noted for distinguished patriotism and for representatives who have taken important places in the annals of their state and community.
The Hopkins family originated in England, but from early colonial days has been well represented in this country. The paternal grandfather of the Doctor was Captain Elihu Hopkins, a native of Kentucky and a pioneer of Miami county, Ohio. He was a farmer and a man of much more than average intelligence and learning. Becoming a local minister in the Methodist Episcopal church, he did effective service in the spreading of Christianity, and few men of the neighborhood wielded a wider or more beneficent influence. During some of the Indian outbreaks on the then western frontier he fought in the militia and there won his title of captain. In politics an ardent Whig, he did much for the party, and in every department of human activity at that time he made his influence felt.
Rev. E. H. Hopkins, the lather of our subject, was born in Preble county, Ohio, in 1807, and received his education in the primitive log schoolhouse of the period. Not content with such meager opportunities, however, he studied by himself, and up to the time of his death was a great reader and profound student. In his young manhood he had read law with the distinguished lawyer and statesman, Henry Clay, then of Lexington, Kentucky, and was admitted to the bar under his patronage. Then, for fourteen years, he practiced law in Shelby and Miami counties, and was very successful. In the meantime he began theological studies and started upon his long and successful ministry in the Methodist Episcopal church, continuing to be thus occupied until his career was terminated by death, August 2, 1880. During all this time he was a member of the Central Ohio conference, and was placed on the superannuated list just a few years prior to his demise. In personal appearance he was a man of impressive bearing, tall, being fully six feet seven inches in height and well proportioned. A fluent, logical speaker and an alert thinker, he won from the start the attention of those whom he addressed, and carried them along to his point of view by the earnestness and strength of his arguments. He was very well known throughout Ohio and was president of a local ministerial union for some time. A strong Whig, abolitionist and Republican, he voted for Henry Clay, John C. Fremont and Abraham Lincoln, stumping the state in the interest of our martyr president. From principle he was bitterly opposed to slavery and was very active in the "underground-railroad" system. In short, he was a man of broad mind and of active sympathy wherever humanity was concerned, and he was surely found in the van of progress, whatever the cause.
His first marriage was to Sarah Brower, mother of Dr. R. R., of this article; Dr. D. O. Hopkins, of Burlington City, Kansas; Mrs. Mary J. Kemp, Fletcher, Ohio; and W. H. and Andrew, both deceased. After the death of his first wife, Mr. Hopkins married Emily Myres, the date of the ceremony being September 29, 1847. The three children born to them have all passed away, as well as the mother. December 28, 1876, occurred the third marriage of our subject's father, the lady of his choice being Margaret L. Rausch.
The birth of Dr. R. R. Hopkins took place near Troy, Miami county, Ohio, March 24, 1844. He received a liberal education, and in 1862 was graduated in the classical department of the Ohio Wesleyan University, at Delaware. Soon afterward he entered upon the study of medicine under the direction of his elder brother, and subsequently was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine, in the Cincinnati College of Medicine, and Surgery, being a member of the class of 1868. Later he took a special course of lectures on chronic diseases, his instructor being Professor Telleferro, a noted French specialist; and at another time he pursued a course of study on diseases of the mind, the lectures on the subject being delivered by Dr. J. A. Thacker, both of the college in which our subject had graduated. In 1870 Dr. Hopkins located in the town of Addison, Ohio, and remained there for seven years, after which he went to Sidney, Ohio, and practiced there for five years. While there he was appointed division surgeon of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad (now the Big Four), which position he held for nearly five years, when he resigned on account of poor health. At the end of that period he went to Cincinnati, and five years later he opened an office in Richmond and settled permanently here. A man of deep research and study, he has given much time to his special branches and for four years was on the staff of the Cincinnati Medical News, contributing many valuable articles on subjects of hygiene, sanitation, etc. In all matters, political and otherwise, he is liberal and broad-minded, reserving his right to vote as he deems best, regardless of party lines, but, in the main, he favors the Republican party. He has belonged to several county and local medical societies and is a member of the blue lodge of the Masonic fraternity.
September 15, 1870, Dr. Hopkins was married to Miss Dacie Leapley, daughter of Jacob and Louise Leapley, of Sidney, Ohio. Their only daughter, Grace H., married Philip Ramp, of Richmond, and they have a little son, Leland Hopkins Ramp. Robert Galen, the only son of the Doctor, is a youth of fifteen years, a student in the Richmond schools. Philip Ramp is a passenger conductor in the employ of the Panhandle Railroad, and his home is at No. 200 South B street.
Source:
Biographical and Genealogical History of Wayne, Fayette, Union and Franklin Counties, Indiana, Volume 1, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, 1899