Stephen Hopkins was born on March 7, 1707, the second of nine children of William and Ruth (Wilkinson) Hopkins. Hopkins later married Sarah Scott, and together they had seven children. Unfortunately, only five of them survived to adulthood. Despite being self-educated, Hopkins served as justice of the peace at the age of only 23. He went on to win election as town solicitor in Scituate and served in the Rhode Island General Assembly as a Scituate representative in the 1730s. His colleagues elected him speaker of the House of Representatives seven times; he served nine terms as governor, and eleven years as chief justice. He was also the representative for Rhode Island at the Albany Congress in 1754, where he supported Benjamin Franklin’s plan for colonial union.

Stephen Hopkins built his family a beautiful home on Towne Street (now South Main Street), which stands today on Hopkins Street, in 1742. The following year, after the Hopkins family moved from Scituate to Providence, Sarah Hopkins and two of the young sons passed away. On January 2, 1755, Hopkins married his second wife, Anne Smith, and she and her two children joined Hopkins in his Providence home.

In 1764, the British parliament passed the Sugar Act, and Governor Hopkins wrote a revolutionary pamphlet, “The Rights of the Colonies Examined,” which was distributed throughout the colonies. In 1772, when Providence residents attacked and burned the British vessel Gaspee, Justice Hopkins refused to sign the court order to arrest those responsible. As the American Revolution approached, Hopkins was appointed the chairman of the Continental Congress's Naval Committee; his experience as a shipping merchant was ideal for building the new American navy. His brother Esek became the Navy's first admiral.

In 1776, at the age of seventy and suffering from palsy, Stephen Hopkins signed the Declaration of Independence as Rhode Island’s delegate. After signing the Declaration he said, “My hand trembles but my heart does not.” Sadly, Hopkins died in July 1785 and was buried in North Burial Ground. “A vast assemblage of persons, consisting of judges of the courts, the president, professors and students of the college, together with the citizens of the town, and inhabitants of the state, followed the remains of this eminent man to his resting place in the grave."

On Hopkins Street, the 8-room, dark-red home of Stephen Hopkins still stands and is now a historic house museum with guided-tours for visitors.

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The Rhode Island School of Design, most commonly known by its acronym RISD, is an internationally acclaimed leader in art and design education. Established in 1877 by 34 members of the Rhode Island Women’s Centennial Commission, the school embarked on a radical experiment in education: combining the study of art, craft, and design, from sculpture and textiles to furniture making and glass production. The red brick Waterman Building (1893) is a Venetian Renaissance landmark that was built to house art galleries, classrooms, and studios. At the base of the hill is the Metcalf Building (1915), created to look and function as a textile factory to teach students about the practical manufacture of fabrics, as well as their design. RISD offers more than a traditional fine arts school education, with an emphasis on creative thinking, industrial design, and superior craftsmanship. RISD’s campus, which began alongside the Brown University campus on College Hill has since expanded into Providence’s downtown area.

Founded in 1877 (the same year as the school), the RISD Museum boasts one of the country’s finest collections of art from across many cultures, time periods, and media, from ancient Egyptian artifacts and early American decorative arts to French Impressionist paintings and cutting edge film and video. The museum supports the school’s original focus on industrial arts education in many forms from textiles to jewelry design. The museum’s groundbreaking exhibitions, educational outreach, and extensive public programs continue to form the foundation of a thriving creative culture in the city of Providence and beyond.

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Eleanor Dove’s recipe for Raccoon Pot Pie was so beloved, so well-known, that it is now preserved in the Congressional Book of Records, according to her great-granddaughter. Eleanor and her husband Ferris Dove, both members of the Narragansett tribe, opened the Dovecrest Restaurant on this site in 1963 as a steakhouse. They soon began serving more traditional Narragansett foods based on recipes from Eleanor’s father. People came from all over the country to try the Dovecrest’s buffalo steak, rabbit stew, succotash, venison, and especially johnnycakes--the best in the world, as a 1981 New York Times article concluded. After several decades of culinary success, the Dovecrest Restaurant closed and the Tomaquag Museum took over its space. Today, museum visitors learn about Indigenous ways of fishing, hunting, and agricultural practices on the same spot where they used to eat johnnycakes. Many of the foods Rhode Islanders consider unique to the Ocean State’s heritage date from before the arrival of Roger Williams and other European colonists. Indigenous peoples, like the Narragansett, Wampanoag, and Nipmuc, had complex foodways that continue to influence Rhode Island cuisine. Although the Dovecrest Restaurant no longer exists, curious cooks can recreate Eleanor’s Quahog Chowder from the recipe below. Clam chowder can be a contentious topic around these parts. While the so-called New England version is creamy and thick, the Manhattan version is tomato-based. Rhode Island clam chowder, on the other hand, more closely resembles the Dovecrest’s--a clear broth, rich with salt pork, potatoes, and local quahog clams. Since dairy and tomatoes did not exist in New England prior to contact with European settlers, one might say that the Dovecrest Quahog Chowder is indeed the most Rhode Island of them all.

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BAM! While Chef Emeril Lagasse’s catchphrase may not have started at Johnson & Wales University’s College of Culinary Arts, Lagasse did graduate in 1978 from J&W and go on to become a professional chef and television host. The Portuguese and French-Canadian restauranteur was born in nearby Fall River, Massachusetts, but launched his career in New Orleans, where he mastered his signature Creole and Cajun cuisine. The culinary arts program had only recently started when Emeril attended. While the university was founded in 1914 as a business school, what is now known as the College of Culinary Arts opened in 1973 and became more formally established in 1992. The Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University is a teaching museum that preserves and interprets culinary and hospitality heritage. Connected to the university, the museum features work and materials by and for students attending the College of Culinary Arts while also operating exhibits for regular museum visitors. In 1979, Johnson & Wales accepted industrialist Paul Fritzsche’s donation of 7,500 rare historical cookbooks, followed a decade later by a donation from educator and restaurateur Louis Szathmary of 64,000 items, including books, artifacts, menus, silver, matchbooks, pots, pans, appliances, artwork, correspondence, autographs, antiques, and advertisements spanning five hundred years. These two collections led the university to create the Culinary Archives & Museum in 1989 to highlight culinary history and culture. More recently, Zack Hanle of Bon Appetit magazine donated over 4,000 menus from around the world, and the museum has also accepted donations from Earle MacAusland of Gourmet Magazine, New York Times columnist and cookbook author Jean Hewitt, McCalls editor Mary Norton, and author and chef Julia Child, who received an honorary doctorate degree from the university in 1995. The renamed Culinary Arts Museum tells stories about food trends, traditions, and innovations, including the significant impact of the College of Culinary Arts on the Rhode Island food scene. The College of Culinary Arts has served as a catalyst for the culinary arts in the state, especially in Providence. Johnson & Wales alumni have established numerous restaurants in Rhode Island and significantly shape local food culture and the culinary arts. As Emeril would say, “Feel the love.”

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