Stephen was born about 1580 in Hursley, Hampshire, England. His parentage has not been proved, but he may be the son of Stephen Hopkins of Wortley, Parish of Wotton, Underedge, County Gloucester, England, perhaps baptised there October 29, 1581. Stephen married his first wife, Mary, and in the parish of Hursley, Hampshire and they baptized three children.

The surname of his first wife remains unknown. No authority has been found for the often published identification of her as Constance Dudley. In 1998, Caleb Johnson published an article in the American Genealogist proving that Stephen was not from Wortley, Wooton-under-Edge. He was from Hursley, Hampshire, England. He also uncovered the probate records for Stephen's first wife. Her name wasn't Constance. It was Mary.

    Stephen's next adventure was in 1609 on a voyage as minister's clerk on the "Sea Venture" destined for the new and ill fated settlement of Jamestown. Even this voyage was ill fated. On July 28, 1609, the ship was wrecked in a storm, and the company came ashore on the Bermudan "Ile of Divels". The 150 survivors were marooned on the island for ten months. They survived on what they could glean from the sea and the wild pigs which were accidently planted there by prior wrecked European seafarers. While they were there, Stephen organized a mutiny, claiming that they were legally bound by what went about on the ship or at the Jamestown community, but not while they were on the island. For this, he was apprehened and sentenced to death. He basically talked his way out of it by appealing to the sensitivity of the leadership, claiming that it would be too hard a ordeal for his wife and three children back home. It worked, his sentence was commuted. According to William Strachey's record of the voyage, that friends among his cohorts later procured a pardon from the Governor. Strachey said that while Hopkins was very religious, he was contentious and defiant of authority and possessed enough learning to undertake wrest leadership from others. While the company was stranded on the island, they built two boats, the "Patience" and the "Deliverance" which carried them to the original Jameston, Virginia Colony on May 24, 1610.
     While Stephen was away, his wife Mary died. She was buried in Hursley on May 9, 1613, and left behind a probate estate which mentions her children Elizabeth, Constance and Giles. No trace has been found of Stephen's home in Jamestown, so it has been assumed he soon returned to his family in England. Perhaps not knowing of his wife's death.
    Stephen was back in England by 1617 and at his home just outside of London Wall on the high road entering the city at Aldgate in the vicinity of Heneage House. He married for the second time Elizabeth Fisher on February 19, 1617/18 at St. Mary Matfellon, Whitechapel, London. At this stage in his life, Stephen was now considered a tanner or leathermaker. In this neighborhood lived John Carver and William Bradford of the Mayflower Company, Robert Cushman, the London agent for the Pilgrims and Edward Southworth, who later came to New England. Through these contacts, he made his way to the Mayflower"

"The names of those which came over first, in the year 1620, and were by the blessing of God the first beginners, and in a sort the foundation of all the Plantations and Colonies in New England; and their families... "Mr. Stephen Hopkins and Elizabeth his wife, and two children called Giles and Constanta, a daughter, both by a former wife. And two more by this wife called Damaris and Oceanus; the last was born at sea. and two servants called Edward Doty and Edward Lester."
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, ed.
Samuel Eliot Morison (New York : Knopf, 1991), p. 441-3.

    With this trip, Stephen became the only person with the distintion of being not only a member of the original Jamestown Settlement but also landing in America onboard the Mayflower. Upon the ship's arrival at Cape Cod November 11, 1620, Stephen was among the men signing the Mayflower Compact in the cabin:

The Mayflower Compact
"I shall ... begin with a combination made by them before they came ashore ; being the first foundation of their government in this place. Occasioned partly by the discontented and mutinous speeches that some of the strangers amonst them had let fall from them in the ship: That when they came ashore they would use their own liberty, for none had power to command them, the patent they had being for Virginia and not for New England... And partly that such an act by them done, this their condition considered, might be as firm as any patent, and in some respects more sure.
"The form was as followeth : IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken, for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini 1620."

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, ed.
Samuel Eliot Morison (New York : Knopf, 1991), p. 75-76.

Native Americans
The story of the "First Encounter" appears both in Mourt's Relation, published in London in 1622, and (in a condensed version) in William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation.

"Wednesday, the sixth of December [1620]. It was resolved our discoverers should set forth ... So ten of our men were appointed who were of themselves willing to undertake it, to wit, Captain Standish, Master Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, John Tilley, Edward Tilley, John Howland, and three of London, Richard Warren, Stephen Hopkins, and Edward Doten, and two of our seamen, John Alderton, and Thomas English. Of the ship's company there went two of the master's mates, Master Clarke and Master Coppin, the master gunner, and three sailors ... Mourt's Relation, ed. Jordan D. Fiore (Plymouth, Mass. :
Plymouth Rock Foundation, 1985), p. 27-28.

" ... the 6th of December [1620] they sent out their shallop again with ten of their principal men and some seamen, upon further discovery, intending to circulate that deep bay of Cape Cod. The weather was very cold and it froze so hard as the spray of the sea lighting on their coats, they were as if they had been glazed. Yet that night betimes they got down into the bottom of the bay, and as they drew near the shore they saw some ten or twelve Indians very busy about something. They landed about a league or two from them ... they made themselves a barricado with logs and boughs as well as they could in the time, and set out their sentinel and betook them to rest, and saw the smoke of the fire the savages made that night. When morning was come they divided their company, some to coast along the shore in the boat, and the rest marched through the woods to see the land, if any fit place might be for their dwelling. They came also to the place where they saw the Indians the night before, and found they had been cutting up a great fish like a grampus ...
"So they ranged up and down all that day, but found no people, nor any place they liked. When the sun grew low, they hasted out of the woods to meet with their shallop ... of which they were very glad, for they had not seen each other all that day since the morning. So they made them a barricado as usually they did every night, with logs, stakes and thick pine boughs, the height of a man, leaving it open to leeward, partly to shelter them from the cold and wind (making their fire in the middle and lying round about it) and partly to defend them from any sudden assaults of the savages, if they should surround them; so being very weary, they betook them to rest. But about midnight they heard a hideous and great cry, and their sentinel called "Arm! arm!" So they bestirred them and stood to their arms and shot off a couple of muskets, and then the noise ceased. They concluded it was a company of wolves or such like wild beasts, for one of the seamen told them he had often heard such noise in Newfoundland. "So they rested till about five of the clock in the morning; for the tide, and their purpose to go from thence, made them be stirring betimes. So after prayer they prepared for breakfast, and it being day dawning it was thought best to be carrying things down to the boat ... "But presently, all on the sudden, they heard a great and strange cry, which they knew to be the same voices they heard in the night, though they varied their notes; and one of their company being abroad came running in and cried, "Men, Indians! Indians!" And withal, their arrows came flying amongst them. Their men ran with all speed to recover their arms, as by the good providence of God they did. In the meantime, of those that were there ready, two muskets were discharged at them, and two more stood ready in the entrance of their rendezvous but were commanded not to shoot till they could take full aim at them. And the other two charged again with all speed, for there were only four had arms there, and defended the barricado, which was first assaulted. The cry of the Indians was dreadful, especially when they saw their men run out of the rendezvous toward the shallop to recover their arms, the Indians wheeling about upon them. But some running out with coats of mail on, and cutlasses in their hands, they soon got their arms and let fly amongst them and quickly stopped their violence ...
"Thus it pleased God to vanquish their enemies and give them deliverance; and by his special providence so to dispose that not any one of them were either hurt or hit, though their arrows came close by them and on every side [of] them; and sundry of their coats, which hung up in the barricado, were shot through and through. Afterwards they gave God solemn thanks and praise for their deliverance, and gathered up a bundle of their arrows and sent them into England afterward by the master of the ship, and called that place the FIRST ENCOUNTER." William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, ed.
Samuel Eliot Morison (New York : Knopf, 1991), p. 68-72.


January 1621 : "Saturday, the 17th day, in the morning, we called a meeting for the establishing of military orders among ourselves; and we chose Miles Standish our captain, and gave him authority of command in affairs. And as we were in consultation hereabouts, two savages presented themselves upon the top of a hill, over against our plantation, about a quarter of a mile and less, and made signs unto us to come unto them; we likewise made signs unto them to come unto us. Whereupon we armed ourselves and stood ready, and sent two over the brook, towards them, to wit, Captain Standish and Stephen Hopkins, who went towards them. Only one of them had a musket, which they laid down on the ground in their sight, in sign of peace and to parley with them. But the savages would not tarry their coming. A noise of a great many more was heard behind the hill; but no more came in sight." Mourt's Relation, ed. Jordan D. Fiore (Plymouth, Mass. : Plymouth Rock Foundation, 1985), p. 44. 12 July 1621 : "Having in some sort ordered their business at home, it was thought meet to send some abroad to see their new friend Massasoit, and to bestow upon him some gratuity to bind him the faster unto them; as also that hereby they might view and country and see in what manner he lived, what strength he had about him, and how the ways were to his place, if at any time they should have occasion. So the second of July they sent Mr. Edward Winslow and Mr. Hopkins, with the foresaid Squanto for their guide; who gave him a suit of clothes and a horseman’s coat, with some other small things, which were kindly accepted; but they found but short commons and came both weary and hungry home. For the Indians used then to have nothing so much corn as they have since the English have stored them with their hoes, and seen their industry in breaking up new grounds therewith. "They found his place to be forty miles from hence, the soil good and the people not many, being dead and abundantly wasted in the late great mortality, which fell in all these parts about three years before the coming of the English, wherein thousands of them died. They not being able to bury one another, their skulls and bones were found in many places lying still above the ground where their houses and dwellings had been, a very sad spectacle to behold. But they brought word that the Narragansetts lived but on the other side of that great bay, and were a strong people and many in number, living compact together, and had not been at all touched with this wasting plague." William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York : Knopf, 1991), p. 87.

The 1623 Division of Land
The 1623 Division of Land marked the end of the Pilgrims' earliest system of land held in common by all. Governor Bradford explains it in this way: "And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression." William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York : Knopf, 1991), p. 120. Plymouth Colony Records, Deeds, &c, Vol. I 1627-1651 is the oldest record book of the Plymouth settlement. It begins with the 1623 Division of Land, recorded in the handwriting of Governor William Bradford. The lands of Stephen Hopkins were among those designated as "their grounds which came first over in the May Floure, according as thier lotes were case" and described in this way "these lye on the South side of the brook to the woodward opposite to the former… Steuen Hopkins." The name of "Steuen Hopkins" is followed by the names of 2 Edwards, no last name given, possibly representing Edward Dotey and Edward Lester.

The 1627 Division of Land
Plymouth Colony Records, Vol. I also tells of the 1627 Division of Cattle: "At a publique court held the 22th of May it was concluded by the whole Companie, that the cattell wch were the Companies, to wit, the Cowes & the Goates should be equally devided to all the psonts of the same company ... & so the lotts fell as followeth, thirteene psonts being pportioned to one lot... "the seauenth lott fell to Stephen Hopkins & his company Joyned to him (2) his wife Elizabeth Hopkins (3) Gyles Hopkins (4) Caleb Hopkins (5) Debora Hopkins (6) Nickolas Snow (7) Constance Snow (8) William Pallmer (9) ffrances Pallmer (10) Willm Pallmer Jnor (11) John Billington Senor (12) Hellen Billington (13) ffrancis Billington. To this lott fell A black weining Calfe to wch was aded the Calfe of this yeare to come of the black Cow, wch pueing a bull they were to keepe it vngelt 5 yeares for common vse & after to make there best of it. Nothing belongeth of thes too, for ye companye of ye first stock: but only half ye Increase. To this lott ther fell two shee goats: which goats they posses on the like terms which others doe their cattell."

The 1626 Land purchase
In 1621, King James I authorized the Council for New England to plant and govern land in this area. This Council granted the Peirce Patent, confirming the Pilgrims' settlement and governance of Plymouth. Peirce and his associates, the merchant adventurers, were allotted 100 acres for each settler the Company transported. The Pilgrims had a contract with the Company stating all land and profits would accrue to the Company for 7 years at which time the assets would be divided among the shareholders. Most of the Pilgrims held some stock. The Pilgrims negotiated a more favorable contract with the Company in 1626. In 1627, 53 Plymouth freemen, known as "The Purchasers," agreed to buy out the Company over a period of years. In turn, 12 "Undertakers" (8 from Plymouth and 4 from London) agreed to pay off Plymouth's debts in return for trade benefits. The list we have of the 1626 Purchasers comes from the Plymouth Colony Records. It lists the names of "Stephen Hopkins." He was one of three men designated to provide counsel and advice to Captain Myles Standish on the first land expedition of the Pilgrims in the New World. During the third day out, the company chanced upon an Indian deer trap, and Stephen was able to explain its function and danger to his fellows. Because of this previous experience in Virginia, Stephen was a fairly active member of the Pilgrims and considered expert in early exploration and dealings with the indians. In February of 1620/21, when Indians appeared on a neighboring hilltop, Captain Mile Standish took Stephen with him to negotiate with the savages. Thereafter, Stephen was invariably deputized to meet the Indians and act as an interpreter. In July of 1621 he served as envoy to friendly Chief Massasoit, and he made a friend for the colonists of Samoset, another Indian whom Stephen entertained in his home.
    Stephen Hopkins was referred to as a merchant and a planter in Plymouth records, also as "Gentleman" and "Master". He received a six-acre lot in the division of land in 1623 and later had other plots by grant or purchase. It is stated that he kept for his home throughout his life at Plymouth the lot on the easterly corner of Main and Leyden Streets that had been assigned to him on arrival. He built and owned the first wharf in Plymouth Colony of which there is record, selling it for sixty pounds in July of 1637. He built a house at Yarmouth on Cape Cod but returned to Plymouth and gave the Yarmouth dwelling to son Giles, who remained there.
    Stephen Hopkins was made freeman by 1633 and served with sons Giles and Caleb and son-in-law Jacob Cooke as "Voluntary" in the Pequot War of 1637. He held the position of Assistant in the Colony from at least 1633 to 1636.
    By the late 1630s, however, Stephen began to occasionally run afoul of the Plymouth authorities, as he apparently opened up a shop and served alcohol. In 1636 he got into a fight with John Tisdale and seriously wounded him. In 1637, he was fined for allowing drinking and shuffleboard playing on Sunday. Early the next year he was fined for allowing people to drink excessively in his house: guest William Reynolds was fined, but the others were acquitted. In 1638 he was twice fined for selling beer at twice the actual value, and in 1639 he was fined for selling a looking glass for twice what it would cost if bought in the Bay Colony. Also in 1638, Stephen Hopkins' maidservant got pregnant from Arthur Peach, who was subsequently executed for murdering an Indian. The Plymouth Court ruled he was financially responsible for her and her child for the next two years (the amount remaining on her term of service). Stephen, in contempt of court, threw Dorothy out of his household and refused to provide for her, so the court committed him to custody. John Holmes stepped in and purchased Dorothy's remaining two years of service from him: agreeing to support her and child.
    Stephen died in 1644, and made out a will, asking to be buried near his wife, and naming his surviving children.