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Hidalgo/Frank T. Hopkins
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Posted By:
Bob Schroeck
Nov 24, 2004
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I've been a long-time reader of the Museum site and have enjoyed it greatly. Now finally comes my chance to offer something back! (Assuming, of course, the search mechanism for the forums isn't broken and I'm not repeating someone's earlier suggestion...)
In the wake of renting the 2003 Disney/Touchstone movie "Hidalgo" (billed as a "true story"), I wanted to learn more about Frank Hopkins and his achievements. Google led me right away to the following site:
http://www.thelongridersguild.com/hopkins.htm
A thoroughly documented set of pages and links that show that the "true" story of Frank Hopkins is not just a hoax, but apparently so blatant a fabric of falsehoods that some historians are wondering how or why anyone believes it. Especially telling are the Buffalo Bill museum disclaiming any knowledge of Hopkin's alleged "starring roles" in Cody's Wild West Show, and the Arab historians who not only state authoritatively that the so-called "Ocean of Fire" race Hopkins claims to have won never existed, but also point out that any "3000-mile" race in the Middle East would have to have its finish line somewhere in Eastern Europe...
Looks like a perfect topic to cover in the Museum!
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Comments
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Page 6 of 13 pages ‹ First < 4 5 6 7 8 > Last › |
Tammy Owen
in Texas
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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 | 05:51 PM
Great post Fred!
I think if they got us genealogists together, instead of those who have a financial gain, we could find out all about him. |
Bud Rudesill
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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 | 10:34 PM
I stand by everything I |
Fred
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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 | 05:08 PM
Below is some info that I found concerning Frank T. HOPKINS. You can read it & make your own determination as to his credibility.
Frank T. HOPKINS & family can be found on the 1930 Queens Co., NY census, page #174A, lines 39-40. He states his occupation is a "civil engineer". He is living with his wife Gertrude & a son, Stephen T. HOPKINS age 17, born in Connecticut. Frank lists his birthplace as Massachusetts & his parents the same.
In 1910 Hudson Co., NJ, Frank is found on page #183B, lines 93-96 living with wife Marion age 27 born in Canada & two sons, Frank age 8 & Daniel age 3, both born in Massachusetts.
I also found where he related in an article published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Sunday, March 28th 1926 that he was married to "a Canadian girl with whom he had fallen in love while a boy" & that they had "eight husky sons & two daughters and a home in Bergen County, across the Hudson from New York".
This was three years before he married Gertrude.
You can see the actual article at the following website.
http://www.thelongridersguild.com/children.htm |
Fred
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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 | 05:11 PM
In my last post, I said that Frank T. HOPKINS & family could be found on the 1930 Queens Co., NY census, page #174A, lines 39-40. It should read lines 39-41. |
Tammy Owen
in Texas
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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 | 11:53 PM
Census info for Frank. Need to find other children. In 1930 Mary Ann, the other wife, states they had married 19 years ago (1911). The 2 oldest children were born before 1910.
Frank T Hopkins
Age in 1910: 32
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1878
Birthplace: Texas
Relation to Head of House: Head
Spouse's Name: Marian
Home in 1910: Weehawken Ward 1, Hudson, New Jersey
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Gender: Male
Frank T Hopkins 32 born in Texas
Marian Hopkins 27 born in Canada
Frank Hopkins 5 MA TX Canada
Daniel I Hopkins 3 MA TX Canada
Frank G Hopkins
Home in 1920: North Bergen Ward 2, Hudson, New Jersey
Age: 48 years
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1872
Birthplace: Wyoming
Relation to Head of House: Head
Spouse's Name: May
Father's Birth Place: Wyoming
Mother's Birth Place: Wyoming
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Sex: Male
Home owned: Rent
Able to read: Yes
Able to Write: Yes
Image: 266
Name Age
Frank G Hopkins 48 WY WY WY
May Hopkins 34 (Mary) Canada NS NS
Frank E Hopkins 15 MA WY NS
Donald J Hopkins 14 MA WY NS
Arthur J Hopkins 7 NJ WY NS
Ruth M Hopkins 5 NJ WY NS
Anna M Hopkins 4 NJ WY NS
Mary Hopkins
Home in 1930: North Bergen, Hudson, New Jersey
Age: 45
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1885
Birthplace: Nova Scotia
Relation to Head of House: Head
married 19 years (1911)
Race: White
Mary Hopkins 45 ns ns ns
Frank E Hopkins 25 ma tx ns
Donald Hopkins 23 ma tx ns
Arther J Hopkins 18 nj tx ns
Ruth M Hopkins 15
Myrtle Hopkins 14
(supposed to have older son Joseph, a forrest ranger in WY, and 2 more boys)
In 1930 there are 2 Frank/Gertrudes. One in Queens and one in Manhattan.
Frank T Hopkins
Home in 1930: Queens, Queens, New York
Age: 47
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1883
Birthplace: Massachusetts
Relation to Head of House: Head
Spouse's Name: Gertrude M
Race: White
Name Age
Frank T Hopkins 47 MA MA MA
Gertrude M Hopkins 44 PA PA PA
Stephen T Hopkins 13 VT MA PA
(is this really him? where was Stephen in 1920 and why was he born in VT) Frank said his youngest son was 14 in 1926.
There is another set of Frank/Gertrudes and they are in Manhattan, NY. Frank dies in NY in 1951 so that could be him and her instead. That census has them in their 50's which would be correct. |
Tammy Owen
in Texas
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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 | 11:54 PM
Pennsylvania Ledger 1926
Out in the great open spaces of North Broad street, where Nature is at her worst and the roving winds sigh through not a single treetop; where subways are subways and the law has a representative at every corner, there is hidden a man who, no matter where he works, will never be a willing prisoner of the city.
Born in Wyoming, in the cattle country, he is now a foreman on a subway construction job. Son of "Lonesome Charles Hopkins," famous scout of pioneer days, and a Sioux mother; ex-horse-wrangler roper, rider, member of Buffalo Bill's traveling troupe - and now at work beneath tons of city masonry.
Only successful rider of "Dynamite," the famous bucking bad horse of the rodeos; guide of many an expedition into the western wilds - and going to work every day like a thousand others in the city.
Such is the present situation of Frank Hopkins, the "Buffalo Frank" of other days. A tall, spare man, with wonderful breadth of shoulder and the long legs of the true horseman, he can speak fluently in six or seven dialects and be silent in many more.
"It's the memories that does it," he said apologetically. "I don't talk more than two words for days; and then some one gets me going on about hawsses or ropin' or the plains, and it seems like I never will stop. It was my real life, out there. I live it over again and again."
A lean brown face with heavy square jaw and spreading eyebrows tell of Hopkin's long life under western suns, which have tanned and seamed and weathered him, yet, somehow, not aged him. He would have to tell of his nearly sixty years of varied life, for they are not apparent in line or sinew.
Hero of Zane Grey Novels
The man is not unknown to fame in his way, either, for he has figured as hero of several novels of Zane Grey, and incidents of his life have furnished material for a moving picture of William S. Hart's. In the summer of 1907, when Grey was gathering material for a novel to be called "The Last of the Plainsmen," Hopkins was acting as guide for a party consisting of Richard Wallace, who was a Government naturalist; Zane Grey and other men from the East. the party wished to scale the north rim wall of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and had been making slow progress with their guides. Hopkins took them in hand and made a success of the expedition.
As a boy on the Wyoming ranch of his father, Hopkins was as familiar with Indians as with white men. At the age of 12 he performed an exploit of which he is as proud as of anything he ever did. News of the location of the Crow Indians' reservation, which had just been allotted, had to be carried from the scouting party back to the tribe. not an adult member of the party could be spared. The 12-year-old got the job, and from the Prior Mountains, in Montana, to the Shoshone Valley he rode a distance of 180 miles through the wildest country imaginable to the village of the Crow leader. At an all-night council he talked with the Indians as man to man, defining and describing the territory with the detail and knowledge of a man.
Growing up with horses as he did, his skill in managing and training them led to his first real employment, the job with Buffalo Bill |
Tammy Owen
in Texas
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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 | 11:57 PM
Makes Hit with Colonel Cody
"I was kind of prominent on Frontier Day in Wyoming that year and riding all over the lot. Colonel Cody somehow took a notion to me and invited me to join his outfit. I did and stayed with them for years. We traveled all over the country and went to Europe, too. I used to manage his animals in winter quarters, and in the shows I did fancy roping and riding. And my son Frank rode Searchlight for a first prize in Tex Austin's rodeo in New York, too. But I was the only man who ever rode that old devil Dynamite to a fare-you-well."
Hopkins married when he was young, a Canadian girl with whom he had fallen in love while a boy. He has eight husky sons and two daughters and a home in Bergen County, across the Hudson from New York. The oldest son, Joe, stands six feet seven and three-quarter inches in his stockings, and has become a forest ranger in the Yellowstone. The others have taken up various occupations, but as their father says, they "followed the sun as soon as they got out of school" and set out for the ranch which their father still maintains in Wyoming.
Zane Grey Hero Here
FRANK HOPKINS
"They sure do run to height," says the father. "Even the youngest stands six feet one at fourteen years. And they are all good boys at that. They don't even smoke. I don't smoke myself, and in all my sixty years I have never known the taste of liquor. No sir, the stuff has never bothered me a bit. I hold a man needs all the faculties he's got and has no business mixing his senses up with alcohol. I don't play cards any more, and haven't for years. There was one time when I quit cold and quit for good."
Little Game in Jackson's Hole
There was a little game on in Jackson's Hole, Wyoming, when it was a lawless, quick-shooting town, populated with men quick to take offense and lightning on the trigger. Hopkins was one player, and among the other three was a stranger. Hopkins had been winning heavily. The air was laden with menace. Finally, the stranger pushed back his chair.
(more of the story that doesn't help find him)
"However, that was a long time ago, it seems to me now," reflects this son of the plains.
It was in 1906 that he left the Buffalo Bill show for good. He had been to Europe on several trips and his wife suggested it was time to stay with his family awhile.
"She was dead right," he conceded. "I had to make a living some way, and I took up construction. Ever since then I have been at it and I have worked on the Philadelphia subway a year and a half now. It isn't quite the same, being in the city, though," and the light of other days faded from his smile.
So that is the man who bosses a section of subway construction far below the daylight, in the all-obliterating city. And when the excavating machinery rattles and roars in his ears, he sometimes dreams it is the thunder of a thousand hoofs across the plains.
----------------------
In 1922 Van Tex Austin brought the rodeo to Madison Square Gardens (20 performance). Austin was born in Victoria TX in 1887
In 1889 Frank was with the show in Paris for the world's fair. There are several Frank Hopkins on ships manifests.
Talks about Jackson's Hole. Buffalo Bill Cody was from this area.Yellow Stone is near Jackson's Hole. Says Joseph is a park ranger there in 1926
A lot of riders worked in Canada in the Wild West show and his wife was Canadian. Is this how he met her? |
Tammy Owen
in Texas
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Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 | 12:33 AM
Looking at his age, he should have been in WWI.
I found a registration card with the following:
Frank T Hopkins
serial no 2550
1440 New durham Ave
age 39
dob 8/11/1879
white native born
foreman at the Federal Shipyard
Wife is Mary
Tall, slender, hazel eyes and brown hair.
stamped by the local board, div 2
Hudson Co, NJ
North Bergen NJ (matches census(
dated sept 12. No year but it is probably 1917 or 18. |
A B C
in UK
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Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 | 02:08 PM
Hey Tammy, you sure are good at research!!
the thig that i find frustrating is the whole argument i based on speculation... All i know for sure is I'm conivinced he existed, rode and was an amazing man! and i'm glad Disney emelished on it all... you can't easily capture the feeling you get when you're ridding the open hill just you and your horse and this film really masters it! |
Tammy Owen
in Texas
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Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 | 08:17 PM
Yea. I loved the movie too and didn't watch it because it was based on something. It was entertaining and reminded me of my favorite childhood books, Black Beauty, My Friend Flicka, etc.
I can't believe people have spent so much time and energy going after this guy. So he could spin a good tale. Maybe he really was from Texas. |
A B C
in UK
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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 | 04:51 PM
I just wish we lived in a time when you could make a living on horse back... Some times i wish i could just save up a few thousand pounds, quite work for 6 months and ride round the country, but then i start thingking what would my poor horse eat? He's not a very good doer so the grass just wouldnt keep him going... maybe one day I'l be at a point where i can do it... I hope so! |
oh, god
in .
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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 | 09:44 PM
Okay, was he born in 1865, 1879, or 1890? Just as long as you can continue to make your claims about Frank Hopkins as if they were true.
Can't you just admit that you were wrong and that Frank Hopkins was a hoaxer? What's wrong with you, that you continue to be stuck in denial? Have you taken too many drugs or something? |
HatersHate
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Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 | 11:31 PM
The TRUTH:
http://www.frankhopkins.com/
Now, all you haters can hate on.  |
LOL
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Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 | 01:51 PM
*The TRUTH:
http://www.frankhopkins.com/*
You need help. |
Deputy Dave
in Missouri Ozarks
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Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 | 02:32 PM
Folks, I have been following this for a while now, and finally had to comment. I cannot believe this has been going on for so long.
First of all, 'Hidalgo' is a movie, plain and simple. Disney said it is based on a true story, but they don't say how much, if any, of the movie is true. Frank T. Hopkins existed and is known to have been knowledgeable about horses. Leave it alone.
To those of you that must continue venting, might I suggest you watch the movie, 'The Ghost and the Darkness', another fine movie based on a true story. Do a bit of research, and then you can kick around Colonel John Patterson. That should keep you occupied for a long time.
Next, do some research on the founders of The Longriders Guild. (And, did Count Pompei fly from Russia to England in 1995, or are those wings just an embellishment of the truth)? You will see a strong possibility that Basha O'Reilly and CuChullaine O'Reilly (a.k.a. Asadullah Khan) may be just a bit biased toward Arabian horses and the regions of the Middle East. And that is fine. But, to go so far as to publish a book in order to trash the character of someone who did you no harm in any way, and has been dead for over 50 years...well, that is an obsession that borders on insanity.
Please don't take this as an attack on all of the members of The Longriders Guild. I am sure there are many fine and exemplary horsemen in their ranks. And I am sure I could learn from many of them.
But, I also noted many of the things Frank T. Hopkins stated about horses in one of his published articles, paralleled what I have learned during my 40 years riding horses for a living. So, I guess it goes to show we don't know everything and can learn from 'most anybody if we listen.
So, you give it a break, or continue beating it to death. At the very least, this forum has been entertaining.
I will leave you with this little tidbit. It may offend some, but what the heck, they can get over it. (Or this will give you another person to hate and attack). Always remember. arguing on the Internet is like running in the Special Olympics. You may win, but you will still be retarded. |
oh, man
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Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 | 05:04 PM
LOL Poor guy. |
Dave
in Tucson
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Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 | 10:09 AM
Saw the movie. Liked the movie. Knew it was a movie.
Like Tammy's take. Got a life to get back to...
Luck to all but the crazies.
Dave |
Bud Rudesill
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Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 | 11:05 AM
When Deputy Dave said |
lightbourn
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Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 | 03:04 PM
Right on, Bud.
They're the ones who are keeping it going. They know what the truth is, and they don't have the courage and the maturity to admit it. They don't have anything left but to repeat endlessly what they've previously said and bring up irrelevancies as if they could make this story true by virtue of sheer volume of words, and call those who call them on it names. But the truth only smiles. |
Bud Rudesill
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Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2009 | 04:25 PM
If the truth sets one free, why do so many people insist on remain slaves?  |
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Note: This thread is located in the Old Forum of the Museum of Hoaxes.
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