Stephen Hopkins, a prominent Founding Father of the United States, served as a member and speaker of the Rhode Island Assembly. In 1754, he attended the Albany convention in New York where he reviewed Franklin's early plan of Union. Hopkins was an early critic of British tyranny and attended the first Continental Congress in 1774. He signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 but left the Congress in 1778 to serve in Rhode Island's Legislature. Hopkins also served as governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and was involved in taking measurements during the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun as a surveyor and astronomer.