From Historic Houses of New Jersey by W. Jay Mills, 1902
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
OVERLOOKING the quiet Delaware, where the river bends on
its course to Philadelphia, is the
old city of Bordentown. Like
most of the cities, towns, and
hamlets of Southern Jersey, it
seems to be resting under some
strange magic spell which renders
it impervious to progress and content to live on with
only its memories of the past. Walking along Main
Street and gazing at stately mansions partly hidden by
quaint and ofttimes neglected gardens, the first house
sure to attract the stranger's attention and hold his
interest is a large yellow-brick building, the home of
the Hopkinson family. It was erected in the latter
half of the eighteenth century, and there the illustrious
Francis Hopkinson, known in Pennsylvania and the
Jerseys as "the versatile Mr. Hopkinson," spent many
years of his life.
Francis Hopkinson was the first student enrolled at the College of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated with honor before
he took up the profession of law. Some time in the year
1768 he visited England, spending his time at Hartlebury Castle, the seat of his grand-uncle, and in London
with Benjamin West and other artistic friends. While
abroad he studied the arts of music and painting,
and attained to a high degree of proficiency in both.
Writing from Philadelphia, in 1776, John Adams expresses a hope that he shall see a portrait of "Miss Keys,
a famous New Jersey beauty," which was "made by
Mr. Hopkinson's own hand." A specimen of his work
at a later period was mistaken for a painting by
Copely, and when compared with a portrait by that
great artist, was thought to equal it in tone and coloring. After a poetical courtship in 1768, young
Hopkinson married Ann Borden, a daughter of the
wealthiest man of the town, and the three resided
together in the dwelling now always spoken of as the
Hopkinson Mansion. The musical son-in-law is said
to have charmed the other two members of the household with his performances on the spinet, and while he
played for them the villagers, old and young, would
congregate about the Mansion's windows to hear Hopkinson "tuning."
In the first years after his marriage Hopkinson devoted
much of his time to his poetic muse; and we can imagine
him seated at one of the broad back windows of his
home on early mornings listening to the sound of the
huntsman's horn and the cries of the chase as he pens
one of his silvery hunting-songs. At that time, almost
half a century before the Bonapartes had linked their
names so ineffably with Bordentown, it was known as
quite a fashionable summering place for the old English
society of Philadelphia. Among the families who frequented it were the McKeens, Shippens, Morrises, Chalk-
leys, Chews, and Norrises, and no doubt many others in
the summer took their goods and chattels to the "crooked
billet wharf" in the Quaker City for Borden's "water-flyer." After the year 1774 Francis Hopkinson occupied
his Bordentown mansion permanently, not journeying to
Philadelphia, as had been his wont, for the winter season.
Of the many satirical essays and poems he wrote there
the production which gave him the greatest degree
of fame was his " harmonious ditty" describing the
"Battle of the Kegs." The infernal machines for this
affair, planned to destroy the British shipping at Philadelphia, were made at the Borden cooper-shop and towed
down the Delaware by a plucky villager over night.
The ships they were designed to destroy had been removed from their exposed positions in the ,river ; but
the killing of four men by the explosion of one of
the kegs terrorized the British invaders, who imagined
an American force had come on them unawares. From
the ludicrous consternation they occasioned, Hopkinson secured the theme of his amusing poem. On the
first appearance of the poem in print it caught the
popular taste, and its jingle and easily-remembered
metre made it one of the greatest poetical successes of
the day.
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Polly Riche was one of the belles of the famous British Meschianza
given in Philadelphia. At the time the British came to Bordentown her
Tory proclivities had estranged her from nearly all her friends in the
town, and she revenged herself by pointing out the homes of her enemies
to the commander.
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A year after the fiasco of the kegs, some British troops
then in the vicinity of Bordentown decided to revenge
themselves on the Bordens for their pronounced animosity
to their king. Tradition says they were led to Joseph
Borden's son's house by Polly Riche,* a beautiful Tory
maiden who had been admired by Benedict Arnold before
he married Miss Shippen. They immediately set fire to
the building and its surrounding barns, waiting until they
were sure its destruction would be complete. While
Colonel Borden's mother-in-law sat in the middle of the
street watching the cruel work, a British officer stepped
up, and with apparent sympathy said, " Madam, I
have a mother and can feel for you." "I thank you,
sir," she replied; "but this is the happiest day of my life.
I know now you have given up all hope of reconquering my country, or you would not thus wantonly devastate it."
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The Hopkinson Mansion was also fired at the same
time, but it escaped destruction owing to the curious
fact that the officer in charge was a man of superior
culture. He is said to have become so engrossed in
the mechanical and mathematical instruments it contained
and its immense library that he commanded the fire to
be extinguished, forgetting the rebel in his recognition of
the erudite.
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Captain James Ewald, one of the best known Hessian officers
engaged in the war. While his men were extinguishing the fire-brands
which had been applied to the roof of the Hopkinson Mansion he was
writing the following lines in a volume he picked up in the library
"This man is one of the greatest rebels ; nevertheless, if we dare to
conclude from the library and mechanical and mathematical instruments,
he must be a very learned man."
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After Francis Hopkinson's death, in 1791, his home
came into the possession of his son Joseph, famous for
having written "Hail Columbia." According to the
story still repeated, Bordentown was its birthplace; but
there is sufficient proof extant to show that it was
written at Joseph Hopkinson's Philadelphia residence
at the instigation of Mr. Fox, an actor friend, who was
a favorite on the boards of the Chestnut Street Theatre.
Joseph Hopkinson could not have greatly resembled
his father, of whom John Adams wrote that " his head
was no larger than a good-sized apple," for he was renowned for his personal beauty. He and his wife were
great favorites in the Quaker City social world, and no
doubt many of their friends visited them in Bordentown.
Thomas Moore, the sweet Irish poet, was a frequent
visitor at their house in Philadelphia, and often during
his residence in the little cottage on Judge . Richard
Peters's estate facing the Schuylkill's "flowery banks"
journeyed to nearby Bordentown in their company to
enjoy its lovely views, so justly renowned in the early
nineteenth century. When leaving the former city he
paid tribute to the charms of Mrs. Hopkinson -- who
used to sing his own songs to him at her harpsichord --
in the following pleasing verses:
Nor did she her enamoring magic deny,
That magic his heart had relinquished so long;
Like eyes he had loved was her eloquent eye,
Like them did it soften and weep at his song.
Oh! blest be the tear and in memory oft
May its sparkle be shed o'er his wandering dream.
Oh! blest be that soft eye, and may passion as soft,
As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam!
Many were the musical-parties given by Joseph
Hopkinson and his wife at the old Bordentown homestead. One of the greatest frequenters of them was
Joseph Bonaparte. He was very fond of "ze clevair
Hopkinsons," as he called them, and in his will remembered his friend Joseph with a bust of Napoleon. An
amusing anecdote is told of his having wept in the
presence of a large company over Mrs. Hopkinson's
plaintive rendition of "The Last Rose of Summer"
when that old-time favorite was first introduced to
Bordentown. It is with these musical-parties that the
Hopkinson Mansion is particularly associated in the
annals of Bordentown's social history. In its old
parlors the Hopkinsons, father and son, have played
and sung, Colonel Kirkbride has tuned his violin and
jokingly implored his friend Tom Paine to give the
ladies a tune, and the Misses Guest from over the river
and Mrs. Hopkinson have aired their melodious voices.
The villagers of to-day have declared the house
haunted; and if it is frequented by ghosts, they must
be delightful ones. Sad to relate, though, no spook-hunting visitor has yet acknowledged he heard the faint
tinkle of a spinet or the wail of a violin as he wandered
about it in the moonlight searching for the spirits of the
long ago.
