14 Facts About Timothy Hopkins

Timothy Hopkins 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.

Timothy Hopkins was one of the founders of Palo Alto and a trustee of Stanford University for over 50 years.

Timothy Hopkins's estate is the site of the Menlo Park Civic Center and of SRI International.

Timothy Hopkins was born Timothy Nolan in Augusta, Maine in 1859 to Irish immigrants, Patrick and Catherine Nolan.

Timothy Hopkins's mother went to work in the home of the childless Hopkins family who treated Timothy as the child they did not have.

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.

Timothy Hopkins eventually became treasurer of the Southern Pacific Railroad successor of the Central Pacific.

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 ; though they lived in San Francisco.

In 1887 his adopted mother, Mary Hopkins, married her interior decorator, Edward Francis Searles, and when she died in 1891 her will explicitly disinherited Timothy Hopkins and left her fortune to her new husband.

The will was challenged and though the husband eventually won, Timothy Hopkins was given several million dollars.

In 1892 Timothy Hopkins provided the funding to establish the Timothy Hopkins Seaside Laboratory on the Monterey Peninsula for the just opened Stanford University.

Timothy Hopkins died on New Years Day 1936 of pneumonia in Stanford Hospital, then located in San Francisco, and was buried on January 3 at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park.

Timothy Hopkins' will gave his widow a lifetime use of his estate and at her death in 1941 most of it went to Stanford University.