District of Columbia death record 145,013.
Hopkins is not in the Washington and Georgetown directory of 1860 or 1862, and 1861 was not available to check. Starting with 1863 he is listed each year through 1871. Starting with 1872 Boyd’s Directory of the District of Columbia lists Hopkins as a resident each year (including 1902, the year of his death at 84 years) except 1877, when he was out of the city in connection with the exploitation of his rotary watch patents. Carl W. Drepperd, American clocks and clockmakers (Garden City, N.Y., 1947), in referring to Hopkins, says, “Lincoln, Me. 1840’s-1850’s: Bangor, Me., to 1862. Inventor of the Auburndale Watch. Also manufactured pianos and clock cases.”
Chas. S. Crossman, “A complete history of watch and clock making in America,” Jewelers Circular and Horological Review, January 1888, pp. 400, 401. This history ran as a continuing series of short articles appearing over a period of years. In his sketch of the Waterbury Watch Co., Crossman gives the name as William D. Coates, a name not found in Boyd’s Directory of the District of Columbia for 1875. The directory does, however, contain the name of William D. Colt, a patent attorney.
U. S. patents 165830 and 165831, granted July 20, 1875.
U. S. patent 186838, January 30, 1877.