Updated 5:41 PM ET, Wed December 9, 2020
Census data from 1840 and 1850 show Johns Hopkins owned enslaved people. He founded Johns Hopkins University in 1876.
(CNN)The founder and namesake for one of the top medical schools in the nation owned enslaved people in the mid-1800s, Johns Hopkins University leadership announced Wednesday in a letter.
Census records indicate Johns Hopkins owned one enslaved person in 1840 and four in 1850, according to the school. The information came to light via the Hopkins Retrospective, a university effort to deeply explore the institution's history. Hopkins founded JHU in 1876 and opened the hospital in 1889.
"The fact that Mr. Hopkins had, at any time in his life, a direct connection to slavery ... is a difficult revelation for us, as we know it will be for our community, at home and abroad, and most especially our Black faculty, students, staff, and alumni," the JHU letter read.