OUR EARLIEST HOOPES ANCESTORS
Professional and many amateur (which means 'for the love of it') genealogists have spent thousands of hours learning and documenting information about our Hoopes ancestors. Books have been published,(1) there is considerable information in Ancestral File and other sources available from the Church, and the Internet now has many sites where genealogical and historical information can be obtained.
The exact origin of the Hoopes surname is still not known. While the surname Hoops has been found among many German speaking immigrants who came to America, there is no evidence that these Hoops' from Germany or Austria have any relationship to the descendants or ancestors of Daniel Hoopes and Jane Worrilaw Hoopes, who immigrated to America from England and are our common Hoopes ancestors.
As is still true today, people often mis-spell our Hoopes surname and there are at least two correct ways it is pronounced (with the "oo's" pronounced like the "oo's" in books and with a beginning sound like "who.")
Even though we can't prove these people are actually our ancestors, there are family members who claim they are. William le Hopore, who in 1275 owned land in Dorset, England. In 1375 the name Hooper is found in the county of Somerset, England. (The name of Hooper is believed to be a Norman-French term for a cloth merchant, and it may be presumed that the family which bore it was from France. Others believe that our surname came from those who made hoops for barrels--for ale.) Some believe we are related to a famous Englishman, John Hooper. While a student at Oxford, John was converted to the Protestant faith. In 1539, to escape the "Bloody Statutes" of Henry VIII, John fled England and lived in Zurich, Switzerland. At Henry's death, John returned to London, where he was an eminent and eloquent preacher. In 1550 he was made Bishop of Gloucester, but soon after the accession of Queen Mary, he was condemned as a heretic and, refusing to recant, was burned at the stake in 1553.
If there is an assumption that the Hoopes surname was derived from Hooper, one reason for the name change may have centered around religious persecution by "Bloody" Queen Mary I (1516-1558). Even if John Hooper wasn't our direct ancestor, our real ancestors may have been afraid to have their surnames spelled similarly to his because of this religious persecution.
Our earliest Hoopes ancestors lived near Moorsholm in the parish of Skelton-in-Cleveland, in the North Riding of Yorkshire or York County (the principal city is York, the most medieval city in England) a remote parish on the North seacoast. Skelton is an Anglo-Saxon name meaning "brook-village." Moorsholm may be a Viking name for a "well-drained moor." This could be considered our "anestral home" and is still visited by Hoopes relatives wanting to see the place of their earliest known roots.(2)
Our earliest proven Hoopes ancestor, Robert Howpe (the spelling in his will, which is still available and which may have been written by a professional will writer-we do not even know if Robert could write) was born at Moorsholm (date unknown) and died there on August 23, 1570. He was buried in the parish churchyard at Skelton-in-Cleveland "besyde my wyfe" (spelling from his will). The name of his first wife, and most likely the mother of his sons Robert and John and five daughters, is unknown. In father Robert's will, it says "my sonne John Howpe shall have my farmhold at Moresome." John is our direct ancestor.
John Hoope (the way it is spelled in his will) was born in Great (the word 'Great' also came from his will) Moorsholm, (date unknown) and married Jane Stainhouse on July 13, 1571 at Skelton-in-Cleveland. He was buried April 22, 1608 in Skelton-in-Cleveland. In his will he says he was a "yeoman," which means a small farmer who cultivates his own land. They had six children, their first born son, Robert, is our direct ancestor.
Robert Hoopes was born on July 8, 1575 in Skelton-in-Cleveland. He married Margaret Harrison and died in 1636. Their son, John, our ancestor, was born 1598, also at Skelton-in-Cleveland.
John Hoopes married Isabel Calvert on Feb 24, 1627/8 at Skelton-in-Cleveland. Their son, Joshua, is our direct ancestor.
Joshua Hoopes was born about 1640 at Great Moorsholm. He married Ann (we don't know her surname) in the parish church at Skelton on May 15, 1670. Ann was the mother of their four children, although she died before 1679. Joshua was still a member of the Church of England on May 1, 1679, when the parson of Skelton-in-Cleveland recorded in the parish register that "Joshua Hoops and Esible his Wife" were married. Soon after this they became Quakers, as many of his relatives had done, including his brothers, John and Robert, who moved to Ireland in the 1660's to escape religious persecution.
The Society of Friends, whose members are called Quakers (like LDS Church members are called Mormons), became a separate religious organization about 1647 from the preaching of George Fox. He believed that every person (he included women, a novel idea at the time) had "Christ within" or an "inner light," and could receive revelation. Quaker meetings are very simple; there is silence until someone receives revelation and then expresses it. One of the earliest converts was William Penn, whose father was wealthy and owned land in America.
In 1683, King Charles II reigned in England and those whose form of worship did not conform were severely persecuted. As practicing Quakers or "Friends," and to escape religious persecution, Joshua and Isabel Hoopes sailed on the 13th and last of William Penn's ships, the Providence, of Scarborough, (Scarborough is a city on the North Sea) with their surviving children, Daniel (our direct ancestor), Margaret and Christian, arriving in the mouth of the Delaware River on the 10th day of 9th (Quakers count the months from March) month (November), 1683 to join William Penn's colony in Pennsylvania. The master of the sailing ship, Robert Hopper, identified Joshua Hoopes as a "husbandman" in the little ship's records, which are still available. A "husbandman" is one who farms his own land.
Joshua settled in Makefield, Bucks County, near what is now Longhorne, Pennsylvania. He carried with him a certificate from the Monthly Meeting of Friends at his old home in England. (3)With this certificate he was accepted as a member of the Falls Monthly Meeting (monthly meetings are like stake meetings in the LDS Church-generally Quakers met twice a week for worship) of the Society of Friends in his new country.
Joshua's second wife, Isabel, died on Mar 20, 1691 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and is buried there. Joshua then married Eleanor Pownall, young widow of George Pownall, in 1693.
Joshua also carried with him a personal letter to William Penn written by Penn's sister and entrusted by her to Joshua to be delivered into the hands of Penn on arrival in Philadelphia. We assume that Joshua knew William Penn.
Daniel Hoopes, son of Joshua, was baptized on May 27, 1672 near Skelton in England. He came to America with his family when he was a lad of eleven years old. Raised in America, he was married in Middletown Township, now Delaware County, Pennsylvania on Dec 10, 1696 to Jane Worrilaw in the Quaker manner of marriage (without a minister, with all present witnessing the covenant.) We do not know the exact date of Jane's birth, neither when she came to America, but she was baptized in the parish church of Houghton, Staffordshire, England on April 20, 1675 and died before 1746 in Pennsylvania. Daniel and Jane were the parents of seventeen children. Our direct ancestor, Nathan, was their 15th child, born March 16, 1718, in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
1. The information in this paper was taken from a book with more than 650 pages, The Hoopes Family Record, Volume I, The First Six Generations, published in 1979 by the Hoopes Family Organization, Inc., a non-profit corporation, 1997 Campbell Road, Houston, Texas 77080.
2. In the Oct 1998, Newsletter of the Hoopes Family Organization, directions are given to a farm house, from which on a clear day one can see the North Sea, built in 1160, once lived in by several generations of our Hoopes ancestors. The old Hoopes farm house is 2.5 miles north of Moorsholm, off Guisborough Road, and 5 miles from Skelton, sitting back from the road on a hill. (For exact directions, call Helen Hoopes Reitz in Haddonfield, New Jersey at 609 429-6210.)
3. This certificate is still in existence and states (spelling preserved): "This is to satisfye whom it may concern yt Joshua Hoopes ye bearer hereof was born at Skelton near Gainsborough in Cleveland in Yorkshire in Old England and there descended on honest parents and honestly demeaned himself from his childhood...and not to our knowledge been any way disorderly in his life practice and conversation but yet they ye said people have had love and respect for him and unity and fellowship..."