1925 Biography - Joseph K. Hopkins, Jr.

Joseph Koger Hopkins, Jr., has built up in the city of Baton Rouge a substantial and representative business as a public accountant and auditor, and maintains well appointed offices in the Louisiana National Bank Building, at the corner of Third and Convention streets. In the scope and importance of his business he now has rank as one of the leading chartered and registered public accountants in Southern Louisiana.

Mr. Hopkins was born in the city of Meridian, Mississippi, September 16, 1890, and his father, Joseph Koger Hopkins, Sr., now resides in the city of New Orleans, where he is living virtually retired after many years of successful association with the cotton industry and trade. Joseph K. Hopkins, Sr., was born in Macon, Mississippi, in 1859, and was reared in Noxubee County, Mississippi, where also his marriage was solemnized. His father, Dr. Wade Hopkins, became a representative physician and surgeon of his day in Noxubee County, where he passed virtually his entire life and where also he was an extensive planter. The Doctor was in service in the Confederate army during the entire course of the Civil war, and was one of the venerable and honored citizens of Brooksville, Mississippi, at the time of his death. In Noxubee County also was born his wife, whose maiden name was Martha Elizabeth Stokes, she having been born in 1834, and being now one of the venerable native daughters of Mississippi there residing in the city of Meridian. The Hopkins family has strains of English, Irish and Scottish ancestry, and the original American representative settled in South Carolina in the Colonial period us our national history.

About the year 1888 Joseph K. Hopkins, Sr., established himself in business as a cotton merchant is the city of Meridian, Mississippi, and there he remained until 1904, when he removed with his family to New Orleans. In the Louisiana metropolis he continued his successful activities in the buying shipping of cotton until 1912, since which year he has there lived virtually retired. He has ever been a stalwart advocate of the principles of the democratic party, and while a resident of Noxubee County. He served one term each as deputy sheriff and tax collector of the county. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary Elizabeth Dunn, was born in Macon, Mississippi, near the line of Noxubee County, Mississippi and her death occurred in 1896. Two surviving children Joseph K., Jr., of this sketch, is the elder, and the younger is Wade, who is a mechanical engineer by profession and who now resides in the Hawaiian Islands.

After attending private schools in Noxubee County, Mississippi, Joseph K. Hopkins, Jr., continued his studies in the high school at Meridian, that state, until his graduation as a member of the class of 1908. Thereafter he held for two years the position of assistant secretary and treasurer of the Mississippi Cotton Association, and he then accepted a position as executive head of the accounting department of the Union Seed & Fertilizer Company in the City of New Orleans. He retained this office until 1917, and thereafter was associated with C. G. Robinson & Company, certified public accountant in New Orleans, until 1921, when he removed to Baton Rouge and established his present independent accounting and audit business.

Mr. Hopkins has identified himself right loyally with the Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce and is a member also of the Baton Rouge Rotary Club. He is a popular member of Baton Rouge Lodge No. 490, B. P. O. E., and a member of St. James Lodge, A. F. and A. M. He is a democrat in political adherency, and in their home city he and his wife are communicants of St. James Church, Protestant Episcopal.

August 13, 1922, recorded the marriage of Mr. Hopkins and Miss Bettie Louise Thomas, daughter of Gilbert McCalop and Bertha (Hall) Thomas, the former of whom was one of the prosperous planters of East Baton Rouge Parish at the time of his death, which occurred in the city of Chicago, and the latter of whom maintains her home in Baton Rouge. Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins are popular factors in representative social circles of the capital city.

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Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, pages 92-93.

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