Hopkins, JOHNS

Hopkins, JOHNS, was born, 19th May 1795, in Anne Arundel county, Maryland, where his parents, Quakers, gave him a fair education and the training of a farmer. At the age of seventeen, however, he went to Baltimore, there became a grocer, and in 1822 founded the house of Hopkins and Brothers. From the grocer's business he retired in 1847 with a large fortune, which he employed in banking and railway operations. In 1873 he gave property worth 4,500,000 to found a free hospital; he presented Baltimore with a public park, and he also gave over 3,000,000 to found the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (q.v.). He died December 24, 1873.