Timothy Hopkins

Timothy Hopkins (1859 – 1 January 1936) was the adopted son of Central Pacific Railroad co-owner Mark Hopkins' widow, Mary Hopkins, and friend of another co-owner Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane. He was one of the founders of Palo Alto and a trustee of Stanford University for over 50 years. His estate is now the site of the Menlo Park Civic Center and of SRI International. Biography Early life Timothy Hopkins was born Timothy Nolan in Augusta, Maine in 1859 to Irish immigrants, Patrick and Catherine Nolan. In 1862 his father moved west to California and once established sent for his family; however, he drowned before they arrived. His mother went to work in the home of the childless Hopkins family who treated Timothy as the child they did not have. In 1869 Catharine Nolan remarried and left the Hopkins family with her elder son Thomas but leaving Timothy with the Hopkins. The Hopkins intended to send him to Harvard University but Mark Hopkins' death without a will in 1878 changed things. Timothy Hopkins took over much of the financial management of the estate and in 1879 was legally adopted by Mary Hopkins. He eventually became treasurer of the Southern Pacific Railroad successor of the Central Pacific. Career Timothy Hopkins married Mary Kellogg Crittenden, a niece of Mary Hopkins, in 1882 and were given a 280-acre estate, Sherwood Hall, formerly the Thurlow estate, in Menlo Park (bounded by Ravenswood road, Middlefield road, San Francisquito Creek and the Caltrain railroad tracks); though they also lived in San Francisco. Across the creek and a little way upstream was the country estate of Leland and Jane Stanford, the future site of Stanford University.