Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore is named after its first benefactor, the 19th-century Maryland entrepreneur and philanthropist, Johns Hopkins.
Hopkins was born in 1795 into a family of tobacco-farming Quakers and made his fortune as a businessman and investor, most notably in the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company (B&O), where he was also a director.
In his senior years, Hopkins laid out his vision of a project to establish a research university, teaching hospital and an orphanage in Baltimore. Upon his death in 1873, to fund the plans, he left a philanthropic bequest of $7 million dollars, a substantial portion in B&O stock, financing the creation of Johns Hopkins University, established in 1876, and Johns Hopkins Hospital, which opened in 1889.
