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Local figure

Samuel Hopkins

Samuel Hopkins (1769–1839) was a Virginia-born builder who settled at Chapel Hill about 1793, buying one of the first village lots. He was the contractor for the university's President's House and work on the East Building for its 1795 opening, and in 1800 began the Main (South) Building. He was also Chapel Hill's first postmaster, from 1795. He later moved to Kentucky, where he died.

Source: Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle (Kemp Plummer), 1831-1919. History of the University of North Carolina. Volume…

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to Samuel Hopkins. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about Samuel Hopkins’ life and work. If you know a useful source, tell us.

Research sources

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 3 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Hillsborough builders add a Federal-style house at Cain's Pleasant Grove The Cains commissioned the Hillsborough builders Martin Palmer and Samuel Hopkins to build a second, Federal-style house about ten feet from the original 1775 Georgian house at Pleasant Grove. People: Samuel HopkinsSearch the index · Open Durham: Pleasant Grove / Hardscrabble Plantation
  2. Hillsborough gets the first post office in Orange County David Ray was appointed Hillsborough's first postmaster about December 18, 1792, and the office appears in post office lists from March 20, 1793, the first in the county; Chapel Hill followed on July 1, 1795. Letters were left at the office for recipients to collect, and for decades it moved from one Churton Street or King Street business to another. People: Samuel HopkinsSearch the index · Carolana: North Carolina Post Offices 1785 to 1882, Sorted by Date Started
  3. Samuel Hopkins opens the accounts of Chapel Hill's first post office Samuel Hopkins, the first postmaster appointed for Chapel Hill, files his first account with the Post Office as of July 1, 1795, the earliest record of the village post office. People: Samuel HopkinsLefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 366

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

All places and the county map →

Named with them in the chronology

People named in the same dated entries as Samuel Hopkins, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Research sources

Resources picked for this person, each with a note on what it holds. For ready-made searches of other catalogs, see Search further.

Collections and databases

  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Samuel Hopkins Library card An advanced search of the state’s shared databases already scoped to Orange County’s places and this subject; edit it freely, and sign in through your North Carolina library to read
  • Ancestry Library Edition In the libraryOrange County Public Library Census, birth, death and marriage records, and more, free on the public computers at OCPL libraries

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Books about Samuel Hopkins

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Historical records and collections

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