Sgt. Elias Hopkins

Elias Hopkins served in the Revolutionary Army from Hartford, Connecticut. apparently there seems to be no other of the name of the proper age to have thus served, except Elias, although there is no direct evidence that he was the man. This Elias served 5 May 1775, to 4 January 1776, in Capt. Samuel Wyllis' Company in Gen. Joseph Spencer's Second Connecticut Regiment. (Connecticut Revolutionary Archives, 11c:40.) The regiment was raised on the first call for troops and marched to the camp around Boston. Detachments of officers and men engaged in the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, and in Arnold's Quebec Expedition (Connecticut Men in the Revolution, p. 46); also in Colonel Wolcott's Regiment and served until after the evacuation of Boston in 1716. (Ibid.) He was also a Sergeant in Col. Elisha Sheldon's Light Dragoons, enlisting in the Fourth Troop 15 February 1777; the date of discharge not given. (D.A.R. Lineage Books, 57:286; Connecticut Men in the Revolution, p. 277, which see for services of these Dragoons.) Elias Hopkins is thus described in this enlistment; "Hartford; clothier; stature five fet ten inches; complexion dark; eyes black; hair black."