Hopkinton by the Numbers: Historical Edition

1 - Cost annually, in pennies per acre, that the original tenants, around 1710 to 1712, paid to Harvard College for use of land purchased with a bequeathment from Edward Hopkins known as Hopkinstown.

25,000 - Number of acres originally in Hopkinton.

18,500 - Number of acres today.

13 - Number of soldiers from Hopkinton, 12 men and one boy, who fought in 1741 with Britsh forces in what is now Colombia for control of South America. The British lost 18,000 soldiers and 50 ships in the Battle of Cartegna.

2 - Number of soldiers who returned to Hopkinton after the battle. One man and the boy.

425 - Number of Hopkinton soldiers in the War of Rebellion (the Revolutionary War).

3 - Commissioned officers in the War of Rebellion.

54 - Hopkinton patriots who died in the war.

60 - Salary, in pounds per year, of the Rev. Samuel Barrett, first minister of the Hopkinton Meeting House (church), which was raised in 1725 and first used in 1726 (though it is not clear if Barrett started preaching then). The Rev. Barrett also had his firewood supplied as part of his salary. His house was on the present site of Town Hall.

1 - Pew placed right next to Barrett's pulpit for the hard of hearing.

4 - School dames (or teachers) to whom Town Meeting voted to pay 4 pounds (total) in 1729, so that the dames would encourage children to read. Town Meeting also voted that Mr. Peter How would be the schoolmaster, and his house the school.

3 - Pounds per month for four months which the town approved in 1731 to be paid to schoolmaster How. 

6 - Shillings a week for eight months was the amount the town approved to pay to the school dames in 1731. In those days, that amounted to slightly more than nine-and-a-half pounds.

(SOURCE: "A Brief History of Hopkinton," by Mrs. Frances A. Safford, published in 1965.)