Thomas Hinckley

Thomas Hinckley
14th Mary II
Lieutenant	William Bradford the Younger
Preceded by	Edmund Andros (as Governor of the Dominion of New England)
Succeeded by	Sir William Phips (as Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay)
Personal details
Born	March 19, 1618 Tenterden, Kent, England
Died	April 25, 1706 (age 88) Barnstable, Province of Massachusetts Bay
Spouse(s)	Mary Richards Mary Glover
Signature

Thomas Hinckley (bapt. March 19, 1618 – April 25, 1706) was the last governor of the Plymouth Colony. Born in England, he arrived in New England as a teenager, and was a leading settler of what is now Barnstable, Massachusetts. He served in a variety of political and military offices before becoming governor of the colony in 1680, a post he held (excluding the interregnum of the Dominion of New England, 1686–1689) until the colony was folded into the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1692. A monument, created in 1829 at the Lothrop Hill cemetery in Barnstable,^[1] attests to his "piety, usefulness and agency in the public transactions of his time."

Life

Thomas Hinckley was born in

Hinckley's public service began in 1643, when he joined the local militia company. In 1645, he was chosen to represent Barnstable as a deputy in the colonial legislature's lower chamber. In 1658, he was made an assistant, a position with both legislative and judicial duties (the council of assistants served as both the upper legislative chamber and the colony's high court). During this period, a law contemporarily referred to as "Thomas Hinckley's Law" was enacted; it specified punishments for failing to adhere to certain religious practices, and was principally aimed at curbing the activities of Quakers, whom the religiously conservative colonial leadership considered heretics. Hinckley appears to have been comparatively moderate in dealing with the Quakers; while some called for them to be banished, whipped, or even executed (as happened in the neighboring Massachusetts Bay Colony), the law imposed fines for acts such as getting married without the services of an approved minister.

In 1675, Hinckley was called to military service in King Philip's War, serving as the colony's commissary general for the expedition that included the Great Swamp Fight in December 1675. He was elected deputy governor in 1680, a new position created due to the ill health of then-governor Josiah Winslow, and the great age of John Alden, then the senior assistant. Upon Winslow's death later that year, Hinckley became governor, a post he would retain until it ceased to exist.

One of the principal concerns of the colonial government at the time was its lack of formal charter. That of neighboring Massachusetts was then under threat by the government of King

These events served to heighten concern over the lack of colonial charter. It was thought that Plymouth, a relatively poor colony, would be absorbed by one of its larger and more economically successful neighbors, either Massachusetts or New York (which then included Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands). Hinckley apparently worked behind the scenes to ensure the colony would be joined to Massachusetts, which took place with the issuance of a new charter for the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1692. Plymouth thereafter ceased to exist as a separate political entity, its three counties joined to Massachusetts. Hinckley was then chosen to serve on the Massachusetts governor's council, a post he would hold until his death in 1706. He was buried in Barnstable's Lothrop Hill Cemetery, where later descendants placed a memorial marker in 1829.

Family

Hinckley married twice; first on December 6, 1641 to Mary Richards, and again to Mary Glover (née Smith) of Dorchester, Massachusetts on March 15, 1659. He may have had as many as 17 children, a number of whom died young; different sources disagree on the exact number.

See also

• List of colonial governors of Massachusetts
• Province of Massachusetts Bay

Notes

Sources

• Goodwin, James (1888). The Pilgrim Republic: An Historical Review of the Colony of New Plymouth. Boston: Ticknor and Co.
  OCLC 3570931
  .
• Noyes, Charles P (1907). Noyes-Gilman Ancestry. New York: Gilliss Press. p. 314.
  OCLC 13174186
  .
• Putnam, Eben (July 1921). "Two Early Passenger Lists". New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 75 (3): 217–226.