Background
Hinman was born on March 9, 1734, at Stonington, Connecticut, the eighth of the nine children of Captain Andrew and Mary (Noble) Hinman and the great-grandson of Sergeant Edward Hinman who settled in Stratford, Connecticut, about 1650.
Hinman was born on March 9, 1734, at Stonington, Connecticut, the eighth of the nine children of Captain Andrew and Mary (Noble) Hinman and the great-grandson of Sergeant Edward Hinman who settled in Stratford, Connecticut, about 1650.
Hinman went to sea young and at nineteen commanded a brig in the West-India trade. About 1760 he settled in New London. Early in 1776 he entered Revolutionary service as a lieutenant in the Continental navy, assigned to the Cabot, one of Commodore Esek Hopkins' squadron on the New Providence Expedition. Commanded by Captain J. B. Hopkins, son of the commodore, the brig bore the brunt of the action with the British ship Glasgow. In August Hinman was appointed to command her, and on the list of captains, as established October 10, 1776, he is number twenty. Later he was given command of the ship Alfred.
After an uneventful cruise in the spring of 1777, the Alfred was ordered to France in company with the frigate Raleigh, with Captain Thomas Thompson as senior officer. They sailed in August. Falling in with a large British convoy escorted by four men-of-war, they planned a descent on the convoy and the capture of many prizes, but their scheme was frustrated by circumstances and by the incapacity of Captain Thompson. The ships arrived in France and at the end of December set sail on the return voyage.
In March 1778 they fell in with two British ships of inferior force, but the Americans being separated, both enemy ships attacked the Alfred and forced her surrender. Thompson, blamed for not coming to her rescue and for fleeing from an inferior force, was tried by court-martial and was dismissed from the navy. Hinman was tried later and acquitted. Meanwhile he was confined in Forton prison, but, escaping, he made his way to France and thence home. This ended his Revolutionary service.
Finding no further employment in the navy, in the later years of the war he turned to privateering. He commanded the ship Deane and the brigantine Marquis de Lafayette, but little is known of his success in these ventures. When in 1779 the Trumbull, built in the Connecticut River, was unable to pass over the bar, Hinman, it is said, suggested the device used to lift the frigate and float her over.
After the war he was engaged in mercantile business and for several years commanded the revenue cutter at New London. He died at Stonington in his seventy-second year.
Hinman married, on March 1, 1777, Abigail Dolbear, the daughter of George Dolbear of New London.
