Henry M. Hopkins Biography


	This biography is from "Memorial and biographical record; an illustrated
 	compendium of biography, containing a compendium of local biography,
	including biographical sketches of prominent old settlers and 
	representative citizens of South Dakota..." Published by G. A. Ogle & 
	Co., Chicago, 1899. Pages 692-693

	Scan, OCR and editing by Maurice Krueger,mkrueger@iw.net, 1998. 

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HENRY M. HOPKINS, a well-known blacksmith and prominent business man of 
Letcher, South Dakota, eminently deserves classification among the 
purely self-made men of Sanborn county who have distinguished 
themselves for their ability to master the opposing forces of life and 
to wrest from fate a large measure of success and an honorable name. 

Mr. Hopkins was born near Plattville, La Fayette county, Wisconsin, in 
1853, and is a son of James and Elizabeth (Roberts) Hopkins, natives of 
England and Missouri, respectively. The father,who was a miner and 
farmer by occupation, emigrated to America in early life and located on 
the farm in La Fayette county, Wisconsin, where our subject was born 
and reared, being given the advantages of the country schools of the 
neighborhood. At the age of eighteen he left home and learned the 
blacksmith's trade, which he has followed continuously since, working 
at different times in Shellsburg and Hazelgreen, Wisconsin; Council 
Bluffs, Iowa; Canon City, Colorado, where he owned a shop, and Salida, 
the same state. 

In the meantime Mr. Hopkins was married, in 1880, to Miss Anna E. 
Chandler, a native of Hazelgreen, Wisconsin, and a daughter of James M. 
and Anna E. Chandler. Her father was born in Missouri, her mother in 
Switzerland, of German parentage. Of the eight children born to our 
subject and his wife, five are still living, namely: Russell C.; Elva 
May; Clyde R.; Anna E., and Louise. 

In 1883, Mr. Hopkins and his family came to Letcher, South Dakota, 
where he embarked in blacksmithing. He also took up one hundred and 
sixty acres of land in Sanborn county, on which he erected a little 
shanty, 8 x 12 feet, where he lived alone for six months. Subsequently 
he sold that place and bought the northwest quarter of section 19, 
Letcher township, of which he has placed fifty acres under cultivation. 
He now rents his farm and in connection with blacksmithing he has dealt 
in farm machinery for the past six years, representing the Plano 
Harvesting Company. In the spring of 1894 he had the misfortune to have 
his blacksmith shop and tools all destroyed by fire, at a loss of 
between three and four hundred dollars. He owns a block of ground in 
the city of Letcher where stands his residence, and all that he 
possesses has been acquired by his own industry and good management. He 
takes great interest in raising a fine breed of poultry, and also deal 
sin cattle and horses, keeping from thirty to forty head of cattle upon 
his place all the year around. He dug the first well in the city of 
Letcher and has since been prominently identified with its 
interests,giving his support to every enterprise which he believes 
calculated to prove of public benefit. Socially, he is a member of the 
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Modern Woodmen of America, 
and religiously his estimable wife and family hold membership in the 
Methodist Episcopal church.