Franklin Edward Hopson
Where to start? In 1994 I interviewed Marie Lauharn White and Delphia Moore Hopson. These two ladies were the oldest living descendants of Franklin Edward Hopson. Marie was his granddaughter and Delphia was the widow of his son, Frank Allen Hopson. This is a compilation of the story they told me.
Franklin Edward Hopson was born on November 16, 1872, in Covington, Kentucky. When he was just 21 months old his mother died of the measles, and he was raised by someone else, possibly someone named Mamie. Ed, which is what he preferred to go by was supposedly named after his father who had died prior to his moving to Charleston, WV. He claimed that his father was a doctor and that a lawyer named McCorkle had stolen his land. What both Marie and Delphia agreed on was that he had a sister named Eva Hopson who was a teacher. Delphia thought he had a half-brother named Walter.
Franklin Edward Hopson came to Charleston WV by 1899 because on October 1, 1899, he married Lucy Massey Cantley. The story that made its way down the generations was that Ed had seen Lucy through a window of a store and decided then and there that she was the girl he was going to marry. She initially refused to marry him because he was a stranger, and she knew nothing of his background or family. He responded by having officials in Covington write a letter of recommendation for him and the rest, you can say, is history.
Ed Hopson worked as a machinist for the railroad which may be how he initially made his way to Charleston. He and Lucy had three children:
1. Eva Beulah Hopson was born November 10, 1900, she married Marshall Copen on September 12, 1918 and she died of Uterine Cancer on October 11, 1962.
2. Mary Kathleen Hopson was born March 8, 1904, she married William Morgan Lauharn. He committed suicide by jumping off a bridge while in a military hospital in Perryville Maryland in 1928. He left his wife and four children. Kathleen died on July 30, 1980.
3. Frank Allen Hopson was born March 10, 1909, he married Delphia Mae Moore on August 24, 1933. Frank died on April 19, 1969.
Franklin Edward Hopson died of a cerebral hemorrhage on September 22, 1915, and he is buried in a little cemetery on Oakridge Drive. It's actually hidden behind houses and a privacy fence.
While interviewing Marie, she kindly showed me the family bible and the photo albums that belonged to her mother Mary Kathleen Hopson Lauharn. In one of the photo albums was a note written by Lucy around the time of Ed's death. It said "Sir, can you tell me if you have an Eva Hopson or a ?Mrs Lena Stewart? in your directory? The note was directed to Richmond Va? I wasn't sure about the Lena Stewart because the handwriting was hard to read.
Armed with all this information, I felt that it would be a cakewalk to find Ed.......thirty years later he is still a mystery.
This is an abstract of the information I have been able to find:
*The 1900 census, Ed was born in KY but his parents were listed as being born in NY. This is written in a heavier hand and may have been added later so it's probably an error.
*The 1910 census, Ed was born in KY, his dad was born in VA and his mother in KY
*There was a Plummer and Seldeon Hopson who worked for the railroad that briefly lived in Covington but I could not connect them. They came from Virginia.
These are the family groups I have looked through but have been unable to connect:
*Morris Hopson and Abigail Mead, came from NY to Cincinnati Ohio
*George Hobson, who came from Yorkshire, England before 1840 and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio
*Benjamin Franklin Hopson and Susan Richardson, who came from Halifax Va, through Trigg Ky, then Graves, KY
*Matthew Galliene Hopson and Maria Swindell, who came from Lancaster England and settled in Covington.
Almost all the Hopson/ Hobson families that really moved in and out of the greater Cincinnati area were all connected in some way to the families listed above.
My most promising lead was a Josiah D. Hobson, who was born about 1841. He disappeared from records after the 1860 census but he left at least two children by a woman named Louisa M. Leech. She had a daughter named Eulah Lee Hobson, who married a Robert Franklin Sanders and another daughter named Margaret Jo Hobson who married James D. Smith. Both of these women were born in the 1860's. Louisa M. Leech is living with her parents in 1870 and 1880 but according to a biography of Marshall Hobson (who was a brother of Josiah), Josiah didn't die until 1893. Robert Sanders and his wife, Eula moved to Covington and lived at 1521 Madison Avenue in 1930. Louisa M. leech Hobson died in Covington in 1922.
I have not been able to find Eva in any official records. She wrote letters to Ed, which a granddaughter of Maria Lauharn was kind enough to copy for me. In one of the letters, she tells Ed that Robert and ? send their love and are happy he's getting married. Is the name Eula? No way to tell because the letter is damaged on the edges but the address in 1522 Madison Ave Covington. The letter of recommendation was almost definitely forged by someone. Maybe it was forged by Eva but why?
I've looked through my Hopson DNA results without luck. I've tried asking the last remaining male descendants to submit their DNA, also without luck.
Below are the only tangible records I have. The letters.
