Henry Hitchcock (September 11, 1792 – August 11, 1839) was the first

Attorney General of Alabama The Attorney General of Alabama is an elected, constitutional officer of the State of Alabama. The office of the Attorney General is located at the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama. Henry Hitchcock was elected Alabama's first attorney general ...

, having been elected by the

Alabama General Assembly The Alabama Legislature is the legislative branch of the state government of Alabama. It is a bicameral body composed of the House of Representatives and Senate. It is one of the few state legislatures in which members of both chambers serv ...

in December 1819 in its initial session. He was also the Secretary of the

Alabama Territory The Territory of Alabama (sometimes Alabama Territory) was an organized incorporated territory of the United States. The Alabama Territory was carved from the Mississippi Territory on August 15, 1817 and lasted until December 14, 1819, when it w ...

, the position which was the precursor to the modern-day

Secretary of State of Alabama The secretary of state of Alabama is one of the constitutional officers of the U.S. state of Alabama. The office actually predates the statehood of Alabama, dating back to the Alabama Territory. From 1819 to 1901, the secretary of state served ...

Early years

Henry Hitchcock was born in

Burlington, Vermont Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...

in 1792. He was the grandson of General

Ethan Allen Ethan Allen ( – February 12, 1789) was an American farmer, businessman, land speculator, philosopher, writer, lay theologian, American Revolutionary War patriot, and politician. He is best known as one of the founders of Vermont and for ...

, leader of the

Green Mountain Boys The Green Mountain Boys were a militia organization first established in 1770 in the territory between the British provinces of New York and New Hampshire, known as the New Hampshire Grants and later in 1777 as the Vermont Republic (which late ...

and hero of Ticonderoga, and the son of Judge

Samuel Hitchcock Samuel Hitchcock (March 23, 1755 – November 30, 1813) was the 1st Attorney General of Vermont, a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont and a United States Circuit Judge of the United State ...

Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

Ethan Allen Hitchcock was his brother. Henry Hitchcock's son, Ethan Hitchcock, served as

United States Secretary of the Interior The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natural ...

under

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in ...

. Another son,

Henry Hitchcock Henry Hitchcock (September 11, 1792 – August 11, 1839) was the first Attorney General of Alabama, having been elected by the Alabama General Assembly in December 1819 in its initial session. He was also the Secretary of the Alabama Territor ...

, was a prominent attorney in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

. Henry Hitchcock attended

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...

for a while and then graduated from the

University of Vermont The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is amon ...

in 1811. While studying law, he cultivated a small farm in order to provide for the needs of his family. He became a member of the

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

in 1815 and handled several important lawsuits before leaving Burlington for the lure of what was then called the Southwest. He traveled by

flat boat A flatboat (or broadhorn) was a rectangular flat-bottomed boat with square ends used to transport freight and passengers on inland waterways in the United States. The flatboat could be any size, but essentially it was a large, sturdy tub with a ...

down the

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

and

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

rivers, eventually arriving in

Mobile Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ( ...

on January 22, 1816, after a brief stay in

Natchez Natchez may refer to: Places * Natchez, Alabama, United States * Natchez, Indiana, United States * Natchez, Louisiana, United States * Natchez, Mississippi, a city in southwestern Mississippi, United States * Grand Village of the Natchez, a site o ...

Political career

On May 14, 1818, six months after the creation of the

, Hitchcock was appointed its first secretary by Governor

William Wyatt Bibb William Wyatt Bibb (October 2, 1781 – July 10, 1820) was a United States Senator from Georgia, the first governor of the Alabama Territory, and the first Governor of the U.S. state of Alabama. Bibb was a member of the Democratic-Republican ...

. He also participated in the writing of Alabama's first

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

, representing Washington County in the constitutional convention in

Huntsville Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in th ...

on July 5, 1819. Hitchcock was elected as the State's first

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

by the General Assembly in December 1819. In 1821, he married Ann Erwin (1803-1854). Two sons were

(1829-1902), a prominent attorney in

, and Ethan Hitcocock (1835-1909), served as

under

. Hitchcock then had the distinction of producing the first book printed in the State of Alabama entitled, ''The Alabama Justice of the Peace, Containing All the Duties, Powers and Authorities of That Office'', which was published in Cahawaba, Alabama, in 1822. In 1826, Hitchcock was appointed United States

District Attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...

for the Mobile region. On January 9. 1835, Hitchcock was elected to fill a vacancy on the

Alabama Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the state of Alabama. The court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices. Each justice is elected in partisan elections for staggered six-year terms. The Supreme Court is house ...

. He became Chief Justice in June 1836. Hitchcock was also a very astute businessman, reputedly the wealthiest man in Alabama before feeling the effects of the

Panic of 1837 The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major depression, which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down, westward expansion was stalled, unemployment went up, and pessimism abound ...

. On August 11, 1839, Hitchcock succumbed to yellow fever during one of the worst epidemics of that disease in Mobile's history. File:Henry Hitchcock (1829-1902).jpg, Henry Hitchcock File:EAHitchcock-SecInterior.jpg, Ethan A. Hitchcock in 1902

References

Sources

*William H. Brantley, Jr., "Henry Hitchcock of Mobile, 1816-1839." ''The Alabama Review'' V (January, 1952):3 *Darell E. Bigham, From the Green Mountains to Tombigbee: Henry Hitchcock in Territorial Alabama, 1817–1819," ''The Alabama Review'' XXVI (July, 1973):209 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hitchcock, Henry 1792 births 1839 deaths 19th-century American judges Alabama Attorneys General Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of Alabama Justices of the Supreme Court of Alabama Politicians from Burlington, Vermont Secretaries of State of Alabama