​HOPKINSON, FRANCIS (1737–1791), American author and statesman, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 2nd of October 1737. He was a son of Thomas Hopkinson (1709–1751), a prominent lawyer of Philadelphia, one of the first trustees of the College of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania, and first president of the American Philosophical Society. Francis was the first student to enter the College of Philadelphia. ​from which he received his ba.chelor's degree in X757 and his master's degree in X760. He then studied law in the office in Philadelphia of Benjamin Chew, and was admitted to the bar in 1761. Removing after X768 to Bordentown. New jersey, he became a member of the council of that colony in 1774. On the approach of the War of Independence he idcntihed himself with the patriot or hvg element in the colony, and in 1776 and X777 he was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He served on the committee appointed to frame the Articles of Contedcration executed, with John Nixon (1733°'1808) and John Wharton, the “ business of the navy” under the direction cf the marine committee, and acted for a time as treasurer of the Continental loan office. From X770 to X789 he was judge of the court of admiralty in Pennsylvania, and from ITQO until his death was United States district judge for that state. He was famous for his versatility, and besides being a distinguished lawyer jurist and political leader, was “ a mathematician, a chemist a ph; sicist, a mechanician, an inventor, a musician and a composer of music, a man of hterary knowledge and practice, a wiitcr of air, and dainty songs, a clever artist with pencil and brush and a humorist of unmistakable power ” (T}ler Literary Ifrslozy of the American Rettolutzon). It is as a w ritcr, however, that he will be remembered. He ranks as one of the thiec leading satirists on the patriot side during the War of Independence. His ballad, The Battle of the Kegs (1778), was long exceedingly popular To alarm the British force at Philadelphia the Americans floated kegs charged with gun powder down the Delaware river towards that city. and the British, alarmed for the safety of their shipping, fired with cannon and small arms at everything they saw floating in the river Hopk1n<on's ballad is an imag1natie expansion of the actual facts To the cause of the revolution this ballad, says Professor Tyler. “ was perhaps worth as much just then as the winning of a considerable battle.” Hopkinson's principal writings are The Prcfly Story (1774). A Prophecy (1776) and The Polnfzcal Catechism (1777). Among his songs may be mentioned The Treaty and The New Roof, a Song for Federal Mechanics, and the best known of his satirical pieces are Iypographzcal Method of eonductzng a Quarrel, Essay on W hne Washing and Moderrz Learning. His ll/Iiscellaneous Essays and Occasional Wrzlings were published at Philadelphia in 3 vols., X792.

His son, JOSEPH HOPKINSON (1770-1842) graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1786, studied law, and was a Federalist member of the national House of Representatives in X815-X8Xo, Federal judge of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1828 until his death, and a member of the state constitutional convention of 1837. He is better known, however, as the author of the patriotic anthem “ Hail Columbia ” (1798).