48 MAY | JUNE 2012 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE THE Francis Hopkinson signed the Declaration of Independence, designed the American flag, wrote some Rebel biting satire, composed the nation’s first secular music, and got some props for his scientific ingenuity. Not a bad career for the College’s first alumnus. BY SAMUEL HUGHES December 16, 1776. War has come to the University of Pennsylvania. Most of the rebellious American colonies. The the mechanical instruments had been lent Hessian Jäger Corps has marched into to him by the College’s founder, Benjamin Bordentown, New Jersey, a small town Franklin, who would later bequeath them on the Delaware River just northeast of all to Hopkinson and make him an execu- Philadelphia. Captain Johann Ewald, the tor of his will. regiment’s commander, enters a hand- Being described as “one of the greatest some brick house known to belong to a Rebels” must have been quite the compli- prominent rebel. Its library is filled with ment to the diminutive, delicate-featured numerous pieces of “scientific apparatus”— Hopkinson. Consider the description of and, of course, lots of books. One, titled him by John Adams four months earlier Discourses on Public Occasions in America, in a letter to his wife, Abigail. Having just by the Rev. William Smith—the provost of met Hopkinson at Charles Willson Peale’s the College of Philadelphia and a staunch, art studio, Adams described him as a though nuanced, Loyalist—catches Ewald’s “painter and a poet” who had been “liber- eye, and he plucks it from the shelf. After ally educated,” adding: riffling through the pages he takes a pen and writes, in German and beneath the I have a curiosity to penetrate a little bookplate of the book’s owner: deeper into the bosom of this curious “This man was one of the greatest gentleman, and may possibly give you Rebels, nevertheless, if we dare to con- some more particulars about him. He is clude from the library and mechanical one of your pretty, little, curious, inge- and mathematical instruments, he must nious men. His head is not bigger than a have been a very learned Man also.” large apple … I have not met with any- The learned rebel was Francis Hopkinson thing in natural history more amusing C1757 G1760 Hon1790, a member of the and entertaining than his personal first graduating class of the College of appearance; yet he is genteel and well- Philadelphia, which would soon become bred, and is very social. ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID HOLLENBACH THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAY | JUNE 2012 49 Adams harrumphed a bit about not the occupying British that went viral, at Hopkinson was apparently one of having the “leisure and tranquility of least by 18th-century standards. Provost Smith’s star pupils, and mind to amuse myself with these elegant “I have not the abilities to assist our became, along with Duché, part of a and ingenious arts of painting, sculp- righteous Cause by personal Prowess & poetic group that called themselves the ture, architecture, and music,” though he Force of Arms,” he would write in a letter Swains of the Schuylkill. In November acknowledged that a “taste in all of them to Benjamin Franklin, “but I have done it 1754 he gave a public address titled “On is an agreeable accomplishment.” All in all the Service I could with my Pen— Education in General,” noting that all, his tone seems a bit condescending, throwing in my Mite at Times in Prose & “whether the Design be to preserve a perhaps, and a bit unfair. Hopkinson Verse, serious and satirical Essays, etc.” good Constitution … or to mend a bad would serve his country ingeniously and This was no small contribution. Dr. One, and secure it against all Dangers bravely in the coming years, even if he Benjamin Rush, the “father of American from without, it is only to be done effec- didn’t carry a musket. Having already psychiatry” who taught chemistry at tively by the slow, but sure Means of a signed the Declaration of Independence the College and practiced medicine at proper education of youth.” as a member of the New Jersey delegation Pennsylvania Hospital, put it this way: A bad constitution in need of mending to the Continental Congress, Hopkinson “the various causes which contributed to might seem to suggest the stirrings of a would serve as the de facto secretary of the establishment of the Independence young revolutionary, but Hopkinson, like the Treasury and the de facto secretary of and federal government of the United most people affiliated with the College in the Navy (neither of those positions offi- States, will not be fully traced, unless those days, was still quite loyal to the cially existed yet) and as a judge of the much is ascribed to the irresistible influ- British Crown. He contributed an essay Admiralty (a position from which he was ence of the ridicule which [Hopkinson] to a book published by Smith titled The impeached and then completely exoner- poured forth, from time to time, upon the Reciprocal Advantages Arising From ated). He would later be appointed to the enemies of those great political events.” Perpetual Union Between Great Britain federal bench by President George and Her American Colonies, and at the Washington; be called a “man of genius, opkinson was just 14 when his Commencement of 1762 delivered an “Ode gentility, & great merit” by Thomas father died in November 1751. on the Accession of His Present Gracious Jefferson; and be praised by Robert Morris, HThomas Hopkinson had been a Majesty, George III,” which might charita- the new nation’s financier-general, as a founder and trustee of the Academy of bly be described as blandiloquent. “Gentleman of unblemished Honour & Philadelphia (the secondary-school Less than a year later, he published Integrity, a faithful and attentive Servant precursor of the College), and earlier some caustic verses ridiculing a Latin of the Public and steadily attached to the that year he had enrolled Francis as its grammar that had been written by his American cause.” first student. The senior Hopkinson former Latin professor, John Beveridge. While Adams’ suggestion that Hopkinson’s had been a good friend of Franklin, To make things worse, the printing of talents were essentially artful is on-target, who mourned his passing in The the grammar had been overseen by Vice- those artistic contributions were fired by a Pennsylvania Gazette and looked after Provost Francis Alison. “Errata, or the very real patriotism. His talent for graphic his family for many years. He took a Art of Printing Incorrectly” included the design resulted in such iconic images as particular interest in Francis, and following lines: “When Mr. Beveridge the American flag (see p. 53) and (though he despite the age difference, the two took his Pen in hand/ What for to write wasn’t the main designer) the Great Seal of would be friends until the end of their he did not understand/ He then invok’d the United States—not to mention the lives. (In congratulating Hopkinson on his Muse in plaintive strain,/ His Muse Orrery Seal for his alma mater. his appointment as treasurer of loans obey’d & fill’d his plodding Brain/ The Hopkinson was also the first American- during the Revolution, Franklin wrote: Time of Labor comes—but then alas!/ born composer of secular music. His “Our I think the Congress judge’d rightly in The filthy Offspring proves to be an Days Are Most Wond’rous Free,” written their choice, as Exactness in accounts Ass/.” When Beveridge wrote a satirical in 1759, is believed to be the first secular and scrupulous fidelity in matters of reply in Latin; Hopkinson fired off composition in the country (or at least the Trust are Qualities in which your father another poetic salvo. first written down), while his “The Temple was eminent, and which I was persuad- The offending verses, noted Thomas of Minerva,” celebrating the alliance ed was inherited by his Son …) Haviland in The Pennsylvania Magazine between France and the United States, is Two of Hopkinson’s classmates in of History and Biography, “directly resulted considered, in the words of one critic, that first College class would become in action by the vice-provost and the Latin America’s “first attempt at grand opera.” his brothers-in-law. One sister married professor which prevented Hopkinson—a Famous in his day for his literary wit, Jacob Duché (class valedictorian, profes- steady contributor of music and odes Hopkinson churned out satirical poems sor of oratory, Anglican minister, and for some time after his graduation— and parables like “A Pretty Story” (a sort eventual turncoat—see p. 54); another from taking part in the Commencement of colonial American precursor to Animal married John Morgan, who organized of 1763, to the consequent impoverish- Farm); “A Prophecy: Written in 1776” (an the medical department of the College ment of those festivities.” allegorical response to the Loyalist warn- and served as director general and phy- But the College soon relented. In May ings of Provost Smith); and “The Battle sician-in-chief to the general hospital 1765 the trustees wrote that “as the first of the Kegs,” a puckish nose-thumbing at of the Continental Army. scholar in this seminary at its opening, 50 MAY | JUNE 2012 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE and likewise one of the first who received Hopkinson C1786 G1789, attended the the First Continental Congress a degree, [Hopkinson] has done honor to College, served as a trustee, became a was opening its first session the place of his education by his abili- federal judge and a US Congressman, AS in August 1774, a Philadelphia ties and good morals, as well as ren- and wrote the lyrics to “Hail Columbia.”) printer named Peter Dunlop published dered it many substantial services on all In 1764 Hopkinson and several other gal- a 76-page allegory by “Peter Grievous, public occasions.” Therefore, they added, lant fellows helped a young woman Esq., A.