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Uriah spent his early life in Scituate, Rhode Island, and moved with is parents and siblings to Providence when he was 13. They lived in what is now known as the Esek Hopkins house, still standing on Admiral Street After Uriah married, he may have become a tenant on a farm in Providence near the North Burial Ground.1 He is said to have been living on the property when Moses Brown bought it in 1784.2 He bought the property from Brown on 24 May 1793. Uriah and Lucy arranged with their son Nicholas a "life lease" when they sold the house to him in 1807. This assured they had a place to live, and it was there that they both died. Their grandson Albert Holbrook had a photo of his house among his family artifacts, and it was likely taken just before it was torn down for cemetery purposes in 1882.3
Uriah appears in the 1774 census of Rhode Island with 3 males under 16, 1 male over, and 2 females over 16. Another Rhode Island census, taken to account for all able-bodied men aged between 16 and 50, includes Uriah "Hopkings" of North Providence. He appears on a list of soldiers in Capt. John Whipple's Co. of Lt. Col. Commandant George Peck's regiment of the Revolutionary army.4 This company marched from Providence on the alarm of the arrival of the British Fleet at Newport in July of 1780. They stayed in Newport until some were discharged about 1 March 1781. Others stayed on at Newport. The soldiers were ordered paid at a town meeting on 30 August 1781. Uriah, a private, received £113, 18 shillings, but how long he was in Newport isn't said.
The Uriah Hopkins plot in North Burial Ground, Providence, has several stones carved in the same style that apparently were made and placed there by Albert Holbrook in the 1880s. A stone in the same mode in an adjacent Hopkins plot is actually inscribed as such. The style is similar to one used in the early 19th century elsewhere in the cemetery, but Albert's inspiration may specifically have been the stone of Nicholas Hopkins, which appears to have been made in the early 1800s and is weathered accordingly. Uriah's stone includes a quotation, so he may have replaced a damaged stone. Lucy (Lanksford) Hopkins is surely buried next to Uriah, where a nub of a slate stone still remains.
children of Uriah and Lucy (Lanksford) Hopkins:5
i. Jesse, b. 5 April 1765
ii. Thomas, b. 25 August 1770
iii. William, b. 6 December 1772
iv. Mary, b. 7 August 1774
v. Stephen, b. 12 November 1776
vi. Abraham, b. 24 January 1779
vii. Amey, b. 12 November 1780
viii. Nicholas, b. 15 May 1783
ix. Martha, b. 8 February 1786
x. Sarah Smith, b. 26 July 1788
vital records sources: Uriah's birth record comes from Stanton M. Smith notes, which was likely taken from Albert Holbrook's Nicholas Hopkins, Providence Privateer. His death is found in Providence vital records. The Providence Journal reported that he died in his 87th year at Providence. Lucy Lanksford's name also appears in Nicholas Hopkins.
1. Owners & Occupants of the Lots, Houses & Shops in the town of Providence, RI, in 1798.
2. Albert Holbrook, Nicholas Hopkins, Providence Privateer (1883?), 31-34.
3. Apparently the photo isn't labeled. The Hopkins Atlas of Providence (1875) has a property owned by J. Gannon on Sexton St., which was the name of the owner of the Hopkins property at the time. The shape of the building on the Gannon lot compares favorably with that in the photo, leaving little doubt they are the same. Also, behind the house in the photo is a large tract of undeveloped land - surely the North Burial Ground.
4. pay abstract, Providence Town Papers #2526.
5. Providence vital records.