Commonly mistaken as "John Hopkins," "John Hopkin" or anything else but "Johns Hopkins," the university received its name from the prominent American businessman Johns Hopkins. But why the extra "s"? Johns Hopkins' first name was really a last name. Great grandson of Margaret Johns (owner of a 4,000-acre estate in Calvern County, Md.) and Gerard Hopkins, he was named after his grandfather, the first of the family.
Born in 1795 on his family's tobacco plantation in Southern Maryland, Hopkins was raised in a devout Quaker family. When his formal education ended in 1807, his parents decided to free their slaves based on religious convictions. Hopkins and his brothers were then put to work in the fields.
Hopkins showed a strong interest in mercantile life in his teenage years. At the age of 17, Hopkins left home for Baltimore where his uncle, Gerard T. Hopkins, owned a wholesale grocery. He finally established his own mercantile house at the age of 24.
Hopkins' business prospered for the next 25 years, and he was elected as president of the Merchant's Bank of Baltimore. In 1847, he became the director of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, the nation's first major railroad, of which he already held a large amount of its stock. He was soon appointed as the chairman of the finance committee of the company in 1855.
Hopkins contributed much to the city of Baltimore in the interest of humanity and education. Possibly influenced by his friend George Peabody -- a philanthropist who founded the Peabody Institute in Baltimore in 1857 -- Hopkins arranged for the incorporation of the Johns Hopkins University and the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1867.
The hospital was to be built on the site of the old Maryland Hospital in East Baltimore, enough to hold 400 patients. Hopkins had in mind that the hospital be part of the medical school of the university. Thus, one of the features of the hospital was the establishment of a training school for nurses, the first among all institutions in the country. In addition, he set aside $100,000 per annum for a 12-member board of trustees that would assist him in establishing the enterprises. Designed by Hopkins, the university was to offer free scholarships for poor and deserving students from Maryland and Virginia.
With no spouse and no heirs, Hopkins left $7 million to be divided equally between the university and the hospital upon his death in 1873. At that time it was the largest philanthropic bequeathment in the history of America.
When the Johns Hopkins University finally opened on February 22, 1876, its first president, Daniel Coit Gilman, vowed to establish an institute for "the encouragement of research ... and the advancement of individual scholars, who by their excellence will advance the sciences they pursue, and the society where they dwell." The school became focused on advancing students education and society's education. Higher learning in America soon followed the vision of Gilman and revolutionized into the research university system we have today.
