Background
Hains, Thornton Jenkins was born on November 14, 1866 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States. Son of General P. C. (United States of America) and Virginia (Jenkins) H.
Hains, Thornton Jenkins was born on November 14, 1866 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States. Son of General P. C. (United States of America) and Virginia (Jenkins) H.
G. son Admiral Thornton Jenkins, United States Navy. Education public and private schools and 1 year at Columbian University.
Hains later used the pen name Mayn Clew Garnett. Hains" father was General Peter Conover Hains, a prestigious engineering officer who participated in the draining of the Washington Tidal Basin and the construction of the Panama Canal. Hains" maternal grandfather, Admiral Thornton A. Jenkins, served in the War of 1812.
The Admiral"s logbooks served as the inspiration for Hains" novel, The Cruise of the Petrel (1901).
The Hains-Annis Case, or the "Regatta Murder", concerned the killing of William Annis by Hains" brother, Peter C. Hains, in Bayside, Queens on August 15, 1908. T.J. was tried as an accomplice (December 1908 to January 1909), pleaded temporary insanity, and acquitted of manslaughter, but the case tarnished his reputation.
(Peter was tried in April–May 1909 and convicted of manslaughter He was pardoned by the governor of New York in 1911)
The crime played an important role in the development of criminal and matrimonial law. The case became front page news across the nation at the time and ranks with the trials of Josephine Terranova, Harry Kendall Thaw, and Richard Bruno Hauptmann as among the most widely watched and reported American criminal trials of the first half of the twentieth century.
Hains published twelve books under his own name from 1894-1908.
"The White Ghost of Disaster" was published in a collection under the name Captain Mayn Clew Garnett in 1912. Hains was a frequent contributor to the 1920s pulp magazine Sea Stories, primarily under his real name, but also under Garnett. His writing career seems to end about 1930.
After the trials, Hains" work no longer appeared in the higher-class magazines, and he wrote under the pen name "Mayn Clew Garnett".
Many people attributed to him the gift of foresight, while being unaware of his true identity. Thornton Jenkins Hains died August 19, 1953.
Married September 27, 1896, Mary East. Jones, of Bensonhurst, New York Served time at sea and is licensed navigator of oceans for vessels of more than 700 tons gross, having passed United States inspectors and holding both English Board of Trade and American.