Background
Henry Hitchcock was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1792. He was the grandson of General Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys and hero of Ticonderoga, and the son of Judge Samuel Hitchcock.
Henry Hitchcock was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1792. He was the grandson of General Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys and hero of Ticonderoga, and the son of Judge Samuel Hitchcock.
Henry Hitchcock attended Middlebury College for a while and then graduated from the University of Vermont in 1811.
He was also the Secretary of the Alabama Territory, the position which was the precursor to the modern-day Secretary of State of Alabama. Henry Hitchcock"s son, Ethan Hitcocock, served as United States Secretary of the Interior under William McKinley. Another son, Henry Hitchcock, was a prominent attorney in Saint Louis, Missouri.
While studying law, he cultivated a small farm in order to provide for the needs of his family.
He traveled by flat boat down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, eventually arriving in Mobile on January 22, 1816, after a brief stay in Natchez. On May 14, 1818, six months after the creation of the Alabama Territory, Hitchcock was appointed its first secretary by Governor William Wyatt Bibb.
He also participated in the writing of Alabama"s first constitution, representing Washington County in the constitutional convention in Huntsville on July 5, 1819. Hitchcock was elected as the State"s first Attorney General by the General Assembly in December 1819.
Hitchcock then had the distinction of producing the first book printed in the State of Alabama entitled, The Alabama Juctice 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 for the Mobile region. On January 9. 1835, Hitchcock was elected to fill a vacancy on the Alabama Supreme Court. 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.
On August 11, 1839, Hitchcock succumbed to yellow fever during one of the worst epidemics of that disease in Mobile"s history.
He became a member of the bar in 1815 and handled several important lawsuits before leaving Burlington for the lure of what was then called the Southwest.