Livingston Yort Hopkins was born on July 7, 1846 in Bellefontaine, Ohio. Hopkins was the thirteenth of fourteen children raised in a puritanical Methodist family.

His father died when he was three years old and his mother was left with the home and a small estate. Hopkins went to the district school, and from the age of 14 years worked at various avocations until he enlisted to fight in the civil war when he was 17 years old.

He immediately wanted to run off and join up, as did many young men, believing it would be a grand experience lasting only a short period of time. His desire, however, did not materialize until Company C of the 130^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was organized on Johnston’s Island, Ohio from May 13 through the 31^st in 1864. Hopkins enlisted as a Private at 21 years of age on May 2, 1864, serving one-hundred days.

Thinking it would be a short war, the 130th Ohio was initially organized for only a one-hundred day period. His unit was once known as “The Hundred Days Unit”.

It was composed of the First Regiment Ohio National Guard, from Lucas County and the Seventy-fifth Battalion Ohio National Guard, from Fulton County.   The Regiment left Toledo, Ohio on May 12, 1864 to report to Brigadier-General Hill, at Sandusky; for consolidation and mustering-in.

It first moved to Johnson's Island where it was engaged in guarding Rebel prisoners, then on the 4^th of June the Regiment boarded boxcars for Washington City. It remained there three days before embarked on the transport “George Weems” and was transported for operations with General Butler, known as “Butler the Beast”,  at Bermuda Hundred, Virginia; after which place it was ordered to Point of Rocks.   Their time there was occupied in drilling, digging rifle-pits, and serving picket duty on the lines, until the June 21^st, when it marched to Deep Bottom.  They were at Deep Bottom when the “Battle of Deep Bottom” occurred from July 26^th through the 29^th 1864, between Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott and Maj. Gen. Charles Field of the Confederacy. The resulting Confederate victory left some 1000 casualties on the field after a Confederate counter-attack. On August 11^th 1864 they marched back to Bermuda Hundred, and proceeded on transports again to Fort Powhattan; where it was ordered to be mustered out.   The 130^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was mustered out at Toledo, Ohio on September 22, 1864, upon the expiration of its  term of service. Hopkins mustered out with his Regiment.

Having an artistic ability in writing and sketching, after the war he went to Toledo, Ohio where some of his sketches here shown to the proprietor of the “Toledo Blade” news.

As a result he was hired as an illustrator, which led to an appointment on the staff of “Scribner's Weekly Magazine”.   It was during his time there that Hopkins received a few months training in drawing.; his only official training.

Going from there to New York, some of  Hopkins drawings were accepted by “Judge” and the “New York Daily Graphic”, and he wrote and illustrated the book “A Comic History of United States”.

He had it published in time for the 1876 Centennial Celebrations, thinking it would be a smash, but people in the United States were taking everything very seriously at that time and when the book received an unfavourable review, it became a failure.

Realizing he had a unique skill and continually improving upon it for some thirteen years, Hopkins many illustrations began appearing in nationally recognized journals and he did a lot of work.

His illustrations appeared in the Harpers Brothers book company in their editions of “Gulliver’s Travels”, Don Quixote”, Baron Munchausen” and even Irving’s “Knickerbocker History of New York”.

Other publications included the Harper publications of the “Weekly”, the “Magazine”, the “Bazaar” and “Young People”. Hopkins was said to be a tall, courteous man with something of a Don Quixote appearance.

He was a man of strong principles and with strong puritanical beliefs, but he remained a good host who liked to have friends around him.  He never used models for his work, which often had to be done on the run, but did a staggering amount of it, and always with its own peculiar style of humour.

Hopkins and his illustrative work became so well known that towards the end of 1882 Mr. W. H. Traill of Sydney, Australia called him and offered him a position on the “Bulletin of Sydney” in New South Wales, Australia, which he accepted; as a caricaturist and satirist on their news staff.

The offer accepted, he arrived in Sydney on  February 9, 1883.   Hopkins became an exceptional illustrator and a selection of his drawings was published in 1904 under the title of “On the Hop”.

He went on to do illustrations of Mark Twain, himself a veteran of the Civil War, when he made a visit to Australia in 1912.   When his illustrations and writing began to drop off, Hopkins remained in the newspaper business as part owner of the “Bulletin”; still in existence today.

The Mitchell Library in Sydney, New South Wales holds twenty-seven volumes of Livingston Hopkins work, among them a satire of Union veteran George Washington Bell; as a towering American “Uncle Sam” lecturing to the Australian man on the street.

Some 19,000 of Hopkins drawings on social and political satire, jokes, etc, graced the pages of the “Bulletin” over a 30 year period, and sold in great quantities as calendars, postcards and framed etchings. Hopkins also occasionally painted in oil and water-colours.

Hopkins was a major advocate of Australia’s becoming an independant republic, achieving full independence from England, and hw championed many other social and political causes in Australia as well.

It’s not known exactly when Hopkins got married, though it is known he married Harriett Commager, daughter of Henry Steel Commager, Lieutenant Colonel of the 67^th Ohio Infantry, Colonel of the 184^th Ohio and Brevet Brigadier General of the U.S. Volunteers.

So Hopkins apparently got married prior to accepting his position with the Sydney Bulletin and relocating to Australia.

Hopkins brother, Owen Johnston Hopkins, Sergeant of Company E of the 42^nd Ohio Infantry Regiment, also became something of a writer, authoring his memoirs, entitled “Under the Flag of the Nation: Diaries and Letters of Owen Johnston Hopkins, a Yankee Volunteer in the Civil War”; edited by Otto F. Bond. Hopkins daughter, Dorothy June Hopkins Marshall also authored her own work, a biography of her father, “Hop of the Bulletin” which can be found in the “Encyclopedia of Australian Art”; a book from which much of this information came from.

In her biography she describes scenes of battle and carnage  in the Battle of Petersburg, as told to her by her father of his revisiting the battleground and a museum of its artifacts; finding among them “one bullet in particular” that he himself had fired at the enemy some fifty years earlier.

Hopkins family had long lived at Mosman, in Sydney, New South Wales where years later trees were planted to memorialize early residents, including Livingston Hopkins; who’s old home “Fernham” was situated on Raglan Street. Hopkins lived in New South Wales Australia for some forty-seven years and all but five of his children were born there.

Livingston Yort Hopkins died at the age of 81 on August 21, 1927 at Mosman, Sydney, was cremated and buried at Rookwood Cemetery.   Hopkins was graced with a state funeral at which many leading businessmen, politicians and every day citizens attended to pay their respects. He was survived by a son and four daughters.  His life is forever memorialized by a brass wall plaque in niche 743L.

130^th Ohio Regimental Histories

“Compendium of the Rebellion”, Frederick H. Dyer

“Encyclopedia of Australian Art”

“Historical Register of the United States Army”, Francis B. Heitman

“Hop of the "Bulletin"; Dorothy J. Hopkins

Jim Houston, Cincinnati, Ohio - National Library of Australia

“On the Hop”, Sydney, 1904 - Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney, New South Wales

“The Sydney Morning Herald”, August 22, 1927.

“Under the Flag of the Nation”, Otto F. Bond, editor