Henry Hitchcock was the first attorney general of Alabama, having been elected by the Alabama General Assembly in December 1819 in its initial session.
12 Facts About Henry Hitchcock
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Henry Hitchcock was the Secretary of the Alabama Territory, the position which was the precursor to the modern-day Secretary of State of Alabama.
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Henry Hitchcock was the grandson of General Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys and hero of Ticonderoga, and the son of Judge Samuel Hitchcock.
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Henry Hitchcock attended Middlebury College for a while and then graduated from the University of Vermont in 1811.
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Henry Hitchcock 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.
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Henry Hitchcock traveled by flat boat down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, eventually arriving in Mobile on January 22,1816, after a brief stay in Natchez.
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On May 14,1818, six months after the creation of the Alabama Territory, Hitchcock was appointed its first secretary by Governor William Wyatt Bibb.
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Henry Hitchcock participated in the writing of Alabama's first constitution, representing Washington County in the constitutional convention in Huntsville on July 5,1819.
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Henry Hitchcock was elected as the State's first Attorney General by the General Assembly in December 1819.
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Henry 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.
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In 1826, Henry Hitchcock was appointed United States District Attorney for the Mobile region.
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Henry Hitchcock was a very astute businessman, reputedly the wealthiest man in Alabama before feeling the effects of the Panic of 1837.