Hutchins, Thomas

Hutchins, Thomas, 1730–89, American frontiersman, surveyor, and geographer, b. Monmouth co., N.J. He took part in the French and Indian War and gained a reputation for his engineering ability through planning Fort Pitt and other works. His journals of military expeditions in the Western country are valuable historical sources. A captain in the British army and in London at the opening of the American Revolution, Hutchins refused to bear arms against the Revolutionaries and was imprisoned and charged with high treason. Released in 1780, he escaped to France and ultimately to Charleston, S.C., where he joined the Revolutionary forces. In July, 1781, he became geographer to the United States. In 1785 he took charge of the survey of the Northwest Territory.