1ST GENERATION WILLIAM HOPSON

1^st generation

William Hobson (Hopson)

(born about 1745)

wife unknown

R. Hopson, a Hopson family researcher, provided me with the name of William Hobson, whom he believes to be the father of Thomas Benoni Hopson. He quotes Clarence W. Hobson, a great-grandson of John Hobson and great-great-grandson of Thomas Benoni Hobson: "According to the first U.S. census of 1790, there were . . . five Hobson families in Halifax County, VA. The Virginia census of 1784 showed William Hobson with five children, and it is believed that he is the same William Hopson who went to Wilkes County, NC just prior to 1800, where he was listed on the 1800 census along with his son Thomas Benoni Hopson who was married and had a son about 10 years old. This was no doubt Littleton, born in 1790. Several Hobsons with similar names settled in the adjacent county of Surrey, but William and Thomas Benoni were the only Hobsons shown in Wilkes County in 1800.... Evidently William, Sr. died between 1800 and 1810. . . .It must be remembered that these people were pioneers; therefore they were on the move and occasionally were missed by the census-takers."

JHM comment: William doesn't appear in the 1810 or 1820 census, but that doesn't necessarily mean he had died; he could have been living at the age of 65 and 75 with another family .

A Halifax County history on the Internet says, "Numbers of Halifax County families joined the great western migration out of Virginia in the period after the Revolutionary War." According to the history books, North Carolina received many farmers who overflowed from Virginia, and apparently William Hopson and his family were among them.