Known as "Frank"

A History of the Puget Sound Country - Its Resources, Its Commerce and Its People - Volume II, by Col. William Farrand Prosser, 1903, pages 464-466
JAMES F. HOPKINS

The name borne by our honored subject is one which has stood exponent for the most sterling characteristics, the deepest appreciation for the rights and privileges of citizenship in our great republic and one which has been indissolubly identified with the annals of the west from an early epoch in its history. There have been strong men and true, as one generation has followed another, - men leal and loyal to our national institutions, - and none more than our subject deserves a fitting recognition among the honored and worthy pioneers of the northwest. He now occupies s foremost place among the business men of Tacoma, where he is extensively engaged in a drug trade, and his efforts in that line are meeting with a high and well merited degree of success.

Mr. Hopkins was born on a farm seven miles from Frankfort, Indiana, in 1857, and is a son of Jesse and Nancy Grigg (Thomas) Hopkins, both of whom are now living in Tacoma. The former was born in Indiana, of Virginia and Kentucky ancestry, but the Hopkins family came originally from England, and Jesse Hopkins personally remembers his maternal grandfather, Frederick Kaiser, who was for seven years a soldier in the Revolutionary war with Washington, and recalls many stories told him of that conflict. Jesse Hopkins followed farming and stock-raising throughout nearly his entire business career, or until he came to Tacoma, in 1888, since which time he has made his home in this city, and now, at the good old age of seventy-two years, is a strong, vigorous and alert man, capable of doing a good day's work. In the latter part of the fifties he removed with his family to near the village of Viola, Wisconsin, where during the war of the Rebellion he was a recruiting and enrolling officer, and about the close of that struggle the family removed to northwestern Iowa, then a frontier country, and he was one of the organizers of Lyon county, where he continued to make his home for nine years, devoting his energies to farming, and stock-raising. In the fall of 1879 the family journeyed to the Black Hills, where the father resumed his stock and ranching operations in what was then Lawrence county, and in 1888 he came to this city, where seven months later he was joined by his son, James F. Mrs. Jesse Hopkins is a native daughter of the Hoosier state, and the family are noted for their athletic qualities. Two of her brothers were with General Sherman on his march to the sea. By her marriage she became the mother of eleven children, eight sons and three daughters, and the family circle yet remains unbroken, except one son, Charles, who died when three and one-half years old.

James F. Hopkins accompanied his parents on their various removals, and the best part of his schooling was received during their residence in Lyon county, Iowa, where he attended school at Sioux City, sixty-five miles distant, there receiving excellent educational advantages in the high school. After leaving the schoolroom as a pupil he took up the profession of teaching, which he followed in Lyon county for about three terms, and while there was honored with the office of township clerk. Going thence to the Black Hills with his father, he turned his attention to the stock-raising industry, conducting a large and prosperous ranch, and during his residence there was elected secretary of the local school board, although he was then only twenty-one years of age; while serving in that capacity he employed a teacher Miss Jessie Blackman, a native of the state of New York, and who had come to the Black Hills on a visit. To this young lady Mr. Hopkins was subsequently married, their wedding having been celebrated in October 1886. She is a graduate of the Western New York Normal School at Jamestown, New York. After taking up his residence in Tacoma, Washington, in 1889, Mr. Hopkins was employed for the succeeding eight or nine years in the freight department of the Northern Pacific Railroad. In January 1898, in the bitterest cold of Arctic winter, he and his wife, who seemed also to possess the true pioneer spirit, made the journey over the Chilkoot Pass to Alaska, locating at Gold Bottom, near the Yukon river, where he was first engaged in conducting a "road house" and later in general merchandising, being highly successful in both lines of endeavor. Mrs. Hopkins was appointed the first postmistress of Gold Bottom, receiving her commission from the Canadian government, and while residing there Mr. Hopkins made two trips to Tacoma, on the second being accompanied by his eldest son, Ward H., who was then twelve years of age. This boy made a remarkable record in Alaska, and became well known throughout that country for his bravery and powers of endurance, which were remarkably displayed in one so young. He was an ambitious little fellow and took advantage of every opportunity to make a dollar. Procuring a dog team, he was engaged in hauling freight, etc., for hundreds of miles up and down the Yukon river during the stinging cold winters which often proved fatal to those of mature years, the thermometer often registering from fifty to sixty degrees below zero. A year after this son went to Alaska, Mr. Hopkins sent for his two youngest children, Allen C. and Arthur M., who were met at Skagway by their mother. After a four years' residence in Alaska the family returned to Tacoma, in April, 1901, and in company with two younger brothers, Mr. Hopkins purchased the drug business of the old and well known firm of Quiett Brothers at 1102-1104 South K street, at the corner of Eleventh, the Quiett brothers having both died. The two Hopkins brothers had grown up with and learned the pharmaceutical profession in that store, and were thus able to continue the old business with its long accustomed popularity and success. The business is now carried on under the firm name of Hopkins Brothers. Our subject has just completed erection of a fine new two-story residence, with attic and basement, which is located at the corner of North Fifth street and Ainsworth avenue, and which is modern in all of its appointments and is one of the finest residences in this part of the city. Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins have three children, and the family occupy an enviable position in the social circles of Tacoma.