| Mark Hopkins was born at Henderson, New York, September
1, 1813, and came of New England stock. His
namesake, Mark Hopkins, was a noted educator.1
At sixteen his father died and he went to work in a store, later he studied
law, and then became a salesman for a new type of plow which a friend had
invented, and in this work traveled entensively and gained wide commercial
experience.
When it became a certainty that gold had been discovered in California,
he came by way of Cape Horn and arrived in 1849. After some months in San
Francisco, studying the commercial possibilities of the new country, with
a few associates, he purchased a large boat, loaded it with supplies and
started up the Sacramento River to the mouth of Cottonwood Creek, in Shasta
County. Because conditions there did not look promising, Mr. Hopkins
returned to Sacramento.
For some time he was engaged in hauling supplies from Sacramento
to Placerville and later became a merchant in Sacramento. He was
very successful and invested in real estate. Later he became the
partner of Collis P. Huntington, and both men became prominent in
public life. After the fire of 1852, which destroyed Sacramento,
they were active in relief work and rebuilding the city.
It was in the Hopkins & Huntington store that many important
meetings were held. The building of the Central Pacific Railway was
first discussed there, and Hopkins is credited with testing each step in
its organization with his logical and legal mind. Huntington
was the financial genius; Leland Stanford, the political spokesman
and diplomat; Crocker the superintendent of construction; but Hopkins
was the judicious counsellor without whom the work of the others would
have been ill-directed.
As a man Mark Hopkins hated injustice of all kinds.
He was an ardent abolitionist at a time when that cause won more enemies
than friends. During the last years of his life he suffered from
continual illness. Hoping for relief, he went to Yuma, Arizona, where
he died March 29, 1878.
His widow carried on his extensive philanthropic work, and some
years later married a Mr. Searles, of New Hampshire. Upon
the death of the former Mrs. Hopkins, Mr. Searles founded
the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art in the old Hopkins residence, in California
Street. The institute was richly endowed and made a part of the University
of California. |
| 1Transcriber's Note:
Mark HOPKINS (1813-1878), railroad baron, cannot have been named for
his second cousin, Mark
HOPKINS (1802-1887), President of Williams College. The latter
was still a child when the former was named, so no one had a clue at the
time that he would become so illustrious. Our subject was undoubtedly
named for his father, Mark
HOPKINS "Sr." (1779-1828). Mark HOPKINS, railroad baron, did
not become known as "Jr." because his father died when he was a boy.
The given name Mark runs heavily among the HOPKINS'es descended from John
of Cambridge (see
index), an important fact to remember when claims are made for a southern
origin of the railroad baron. |
