Major Wait Hopkins

(this story is out of the Shepherd family history - Major Hopkins was my 5th great-grandfather)

Major Weight (Wait) Hopkins

b. October 9, 1738 D. July 15, 1779

Weight Hopkins was a farmer, and moved from Nine Partners, New York to Bennington, Vermont in about 1766, locating in the eastern part of the town; on the 4th of July, 1775, he was elected sixth captain of a battalion of seven companies, of which Ethan Allen and Seth Warner were field officers; twenty-three days later, when Allen was dropped by the Vermont Convention at Dorset, Warner was placed in command and Hopkins promoted to be first captain. He was in the expedition against Quebec, under General Montgomery; at Ticonderoga during the retreat of St. Clair; took part in the battles of Hubbardton, July 7, and Bennington, Vt., Aug. 16, 1777. In Stone's Life of Brant, vol. 2, p. 64, a thrilling account is given of his being cruelly killed by a dastardly Tory named Barney Cane, in a midnight surprise on Fourteen Mile Island in Lake George, N.Y. July 15, 1779, the following being an extract:

A party, on pleasure, had been visiting the island on a little sailing excursion, and having lingered longer upon that beautiful spot than they were conscious of, as night drew on, concluded to encamp for the night, it being too late to return to the fort.

"From the shore where we laid hid, " said Cane, "it was easy to watch their motions, and perceiving their defenseless situation, as soon as it was dark we set off for the island, where we found them asleep by their fire, and discharged our guns among them; several were killed, among whom was one woman, who had a sucking child, which was not hurt. This we put to the breast of its dead mother, and so we left it. But Major Hopkins was only wounded, his thigh bone being broken; he started from his sleep to a rising posture, when I struck him." said Barney Cane, "with the butt of my gun, on the side of the head; he fell over, but caught on one hand; I then knocked him the other way, when he caught with the other hand; a third blow and I laid him dead; they were all scalped but the infant. In the morning a party from the fort went and took away the dead, together with one they found alive, though he was scalped, and the babe which was hanging and sobbing at the bosom of its lifeless mother."