This item is part of A Fine Collection of American Society & Association Membership Badges. Click Here to view all items in this collection.
In 14K Gold with red, white and blue enamels, weighing 11.5 grams, reverse engraved "ANNIE GIBSON PACKETT No. 71" on the shield and "STEPHEN HOPKINS" on the ribbon banner, Hopkins being of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, measuring 31.5 mm (w) x 42.5 mm (h), intact enamels, original ribbon, extremely fine.
Footnote: According to their website, "among the numerous patriotic societies of America, none holds a more distinguished and unique position" than the Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. "The Declaration of Independence stands out, not only as the greatest document in the history of this country, but together with Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, ranks as one of the three greatest documents of the English-speaking world. The fifty-six Signers of the Declaration were inspired by as high a patriotic purpose as humanity has ever known. No other patriotic act has ever achieved such success or produced such beneficial and far-reaching results. It is, therefore, extremely fitting, that the direct lineal descendants of the men who inscribed their names upon the first page of the history of the United States of America should form an association devoted to the promotion of the ideas expressed in the Declaration. For this purpose the society was founded, and its object, as set forth in its Constitution is "to strengthen in American life the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence, and to perpetuate the memory of those men who, in signing that Declaration, mutually pledged their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor in the cause of Liberty." " One of those that signed the Declaration of Independence was Stephen Hopkins (March 7, 1707 - July 13, 1785), a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and a Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. He was from a prominent Rhode Island family, the grandson of William Hopkins who served the colony for forty years as Deputy, Assistant, Speaker of the House of Deputies, and Major. His great grandfather Thomas Hopkins was an original settler of Providence Plantation, sailing from England in 1635 with his cousin Benedict Arnold who became the first governor of the Rhode Island colony under the Royal Charter of 1663. The holder of this membership badge, Annie Gibson Gibson Packette, was born on April 22, 1868 in Jefferson County, West Virginia, the daughter of Colonel John T. Gibson and Frances D. Gibson. She later married William Bainbridge Packette (born February 14, 1854 in Jefferson County) and resided in Charles Town, West Virginia. She was a member of the Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence and died on March 6, 1943, at the age of 74. Her husband predeceased her on October 4, 1935 in Jefferson County, at the age of 81, the couple buried together at Zion Episcopal Churchyard in Charles Town, Jefferson County, West Virginia.