Hopewell

Member of a prehistoric American Indian people of the Ohio River Valley and central USA who flourished between 200 BC and AD 500. One of the Moundbuilder cultures, they built cone-shaped burial mounds up to 12 m/40 ft high. The Hopewell were farmers and skilled artisans, known for their silver and copper metalwork, distinctive pottery incised with naturalistic motifs, and exquisite stone ceremonial pipes carved into animal shapes. Artefacts found on Hopewell land, such as alligator teeth from Florida, suggest that they were great traders. The reason for their extinction is unknown, although disease, famine, and war have been suggested.

The Hopewell grew maize (corn), beans, and squash (pumpkin), and supplemented their diet with local fish and game. Like the Adena, another moundbuilding people of the Ohio Valley, they constructed elaborate earth mounds to bury and honour dead leaders and other important people. Stone pipes, jewellery, and other ceremonial objects were buried in the mounds as a tribute. The mounds also served as bases for temples, and some may have had other religious functions. Many of the mounds were extensive, with loops, twists, and turns forming intricate geometric patterns or animal shapes.

Hopewell

Township in Mercer County, west-central New Jersey, just northwest of Princeton; population (1990) 11,600. It was first settled in the 17th century.

George Washington's army camped at Hopewell before the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. Aviator Charles Lindbergh's estate here was the site of the kidnapping of his child in 1932, and was given to the state of New Jersey in 1941. The township is mainly residential, but there is also a commercial district (population 2,000) in the borough.

Hopewell

City within (but administratively separate from) Prince George County, southeastern Virginia; population (1990) 23,100. Hopewell is situated at the confluence of the James and Appomattox rivers, 13 km/8 mi northeast of Petersburg.

Hopewell is a port and an industrial centre, making synthetic textiles, pottery, chemicals, and paper products. It flourished during World War I as a centre for the manufacture of explosives (by the DuPont chemical concern). Its oldest district, City Point (settled in 1613), was a major base for the Union army during the siege of Petersburg (1864–65) in the Civil War; it was annexed in 1923 by the new city of Hopewell, which had come into being in 1913. Merchants Hope Church (1657), 10 km/6 mi to the southeast, is the oldest Protestant church in the USA. Cawsons, the birthplace of statesman John Randolph of Roanoke in 1773, lies within the city.