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HOPPING Vol. 3, p. 1056 Book has photos of family home It has been but natural that sterling pioneer families of the contiguous State of Kansas should have given to the new State of Oklahoma a very appreciable contingent of representatives of the younger generation, and he whose name initiates this article has the distinction of being himself a pioneer of Oklahoma, where he established his residence in the year that marked the opening of Oklahoma Territory to settlement and where he has so brought his powers to bear as to achieve distinctive success in material lines, as well as to aid definitely in the furtherance of civic and industrial development and progress. He is now engages in the real estate, loan and banking business in the City of Tulsa, where he makes a specialty of farm loans on mortgages and at reasonable terms, his fairness being on a parity with his recognized maturity of judgment as a financier and man of affairs. He has been a prominent figure also in banking circles and enterprise and is a loyal and respected citizen who is well entitled to representation in this history of Oklahoma. Joseph S. Hopping claims the Sunflower State as the place of his nativity and is a representative of one of its early pioneer families. He was born on his father's farm in Douglas County, Kansas, on the 11th of June, 1864, and is a son of Rev. Joseph W. and Jane (SHIELDS) Hopping, the former of English and the latter of Scotch lineage. Joseph W. Hopping was born in Sangamon County, Illinois, on the 20th of January 1822, and was summoned to the life eternal on the 14th of July 1898. From the foregoing data it appears that the family of which Joseph S. Hopping is a scion has achieved pioneer honors in three of the sovereign states of the Union, and he himself has well upheld the family honor along this line. His parents were reared and educated in Illinois, where their solemnized on 27th of July, 1854, and of their seven children four are now living, the subject of this sketch having been the sixth in order of birth. Rev. Joseph W. Hopping became through his own application a man of broad intellectual kin, both he and his wife were devout members of the Dunkard Church and served for a long period as a minister of this benign religious organization. In the autumn of 1854 a few months after his marriage, Rev. Joseph W. Hopping, and his young wife went forth on the overland journey from Illinois to the prairie wilds of Kansas, and they were numbered among the first settlers in Lian(?) County, that state. The tract of government land which there became the family homestead was covered to a considerable extent with timber, and the sturdy pioneer from Illinois literally reclaimed his farm from the wilderness, the while he zealously served as a preacher of the gospel in the pioneer community. He and his wife endured their full share of the vicissitudes and privations that fell to the lot of the pioneers in Kansas, but losses through drought and grasshoppers scourge did not dishearten them, and they eventually gained a fair degree of prosperity, the closing years of their lives having been passed in Wilson County, Kansas, and their names meriting high place on the roster of the honored pioneers of the Sunflower State. Joseph S. Hopping acquired his early education in the pioneer schools of Kansas and was but sixteen years of age at the time of his father's death, so that heavy responsibilities fell upon him. He continued to work on the home farm and to aid in the care of his mother until 1889, in the spring of which year he availed himself of the opportunities afforded by the opening of a portion of the Indian Territory to settlement, and he was among those who came to the present Payne County, Oklahoma, in that year, prior to the formal organization of the new Oklahoma Territory. He entered claim to a homestead and on the same erected a log house, the roof of which was provided with shingles that were made on the farm, this being the first hewed log house in that section to be provided with this evidence of opulence, as most of the roofs of the primitive homes were of clapboard and sod construction. Mr. Hopping instituted the reclamation and improvement of his land and eventually perfected title of the same. After residing about ten years on this pioneer farm he removed to Chandler, the present judicial center of Lincoln County, and there engaged in the farm loan business, in connection with which he developed also a general banking business. Prosperity attended his well-ordered an honorable endeavors, through which he was able to give needed assistance to many worthy and enterprising farmers, and he continued his operations at Chandler until April, 1903, when removed to Okmulgee, and there affected the organization of the Bank of Commerce. He served as vice president of this institution until 1909, when he became its president, a position of which he continued the incumbent until 1912, though he had established his residence in the City of Tulsa, in 1909. He sold his interest in the bank at Okmulgee, in 1912, and since that time has given the greater part of his time and attention to the management of his large and substantial business in the extending of loans upon approved farms, of which line of enterprise he is now one of the leading representatives in the City of Tulsa. On May 17, 1915, Mr. Hopping organized the Produce National Bank, one of the strong banking institutions of the state, of which he is president. Mr. Hopping is known and honored as a loyal and progressive citizen, is a democrat in politics, is actively identified with the Tulsa Commercial Club, and in the Masonic fraternity he has attained to the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, his ancient craft affiliation being with Tulsa Lodge No. 71, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and his fraternal spirit being still further shown through his membership in Akdar Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles, of the Mystic Shrine, at Tulsa, and in the Tulsa Lodge No. 746, Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks. On the 25th of February, 1894, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hopping to Miss Alice M. HARTMAN, who was born in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, and they have two daughters and one son- Esta Pearl, who is a member of the class of 1915 in the University of Kansas, at Lawrence; and Velma L. and Norris J., who are at the parental home. Typed for OKGenWeb by Janie Edwards, August 1999.