About Jennie King Thurston Hincks

By Jane Morse Bower

The following account of Jennie Hincks’ life is brought together from various sources. Particularly helpful is a book of family genealogy written by Jennie’s daughter, Margaret Hincks Morse (who was also my grandmother). As well, a recently published article on John Howard Hincks in an Atlanta University publication, Phylon, shed light on her time spent in Atlanta, Georgia.* I am indebted to the Thurston genealogy found on the internet for information about Rev. Richard Thurston.

Jennie King Thurston (Jennie) was born in Waterville, Maine, Oct 2. 1855. Her father, Richard Bowers Thurston, had been born in Charlestown, Massachusetts June 28,1819 and her mother, Jane Miller Pierce, had been born September 14, 1823 in Oswego, New York. Her father graduated in the first class from Bangor High School, Maine, in 1837 and from Bowdoin College in 1841, going on to theological seminary in Bangor. Rev. Thurston was ordained in Waterville, Maine in 1846 in the Congregational Church. Mrs. Thurston was amateur landscape painter.

Jennie was the middle child, having two sisters: her older sister Florence Bowers Thurston (born in Waterville, Maine, March 3rd, 1849) was in Italy at the same time as Jennie, while her younger sister, Marion Percy Thurston (born in Waltham, Massachusetts March 25, 1863) was living in Palo Alto. (There was also a son who died in infancy.) Rev. Thurston moved from Waterville Maine to Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts the year that Jennie was born and then to Waltham two years later. He ended up in Connecticut; Stamford, Fair Haven, and finally Old Saybrook. He is remembered for a prize essay, “Error and Duty in Regard to Slavery” written in 1857.

In Stamford, Connecticut, Jennie attended Miss Aiken’s Young Ladies Seminary, and then went for two years to Mrs. Garretson’s English, French, and German Boarding School for Young Ladies and Children at 52 West 47th St. in New York City. That seems to have ended her formal education.

She met her future husband, John Howard Hincks, while her father was preaching at Fair Haven and living in New Haven. Hincks had graduated from Phillips (Andover) Academy in 1868, Yale University in 1872 where he took many high honours and also was a member of Skull and Bones Society. Afterwards between 1874-76 he was a student at Yale Divinity School and he was ordained on September 27, 1877 in Montpelier, Vermont. Seven months later, in Saybrook, Connecticut on April 4, 1878, Jennie and John were married. They were second step-cousins sharing a common great grandfather, David Thurston.

The young couple first lived in Montpelier, Vermont where Hincks served for ten years as minister at the Bethany Congregational Church. There they had had five children: Percy Thurston (b. Feb. 17, 1879), Alfred Winslow (b. Sept. 5, 1880), Margaret Howard (b. Mar. 20, 1883), Florence Thurston (b. Mar. 20, 1885) and Henry Correll (b. Feb. 18, 1887). Henry Correll died in 1888 in Stamford.

In 1888, Rev. Hincks resigned from the Montpelier church and the family returned to Stamford, Connecticut (Jennie’s Thurston’s parents’ home) where they remained for fifteen months. He was also editor of the Vermont Chronicle until 1889. It is thought that he resigned from the Montpelier due to health reasons as John Hincks was not physically robust and had had to take medical leave from theological seminary earlier.

In 1889 Hincks accepted the post of acting dean of Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University).* Atlanta University was a black university and at this time there was great hope and idealism that education would create equal opportunities for the black race. Not only was Hincks moved by his own principles and zeal, but also Yale had a particular involvement with Atlanta University at this time especially as the President, Horace Bumstead, was also a Yale graduate. Hincks went on to a distinguished although brief career at Atlanta where he was professor of social science and history, dean of faculty, university treasurer and editor of the “Bulletin of Atlanta University.”

John Hincks was not only a fine scholar and a caring and excellent educator, but also an able administrator and fund-raiser in a situation where racist pressures against Atlanta University were ever-present, and where the Georgia state legislature had cut off funding from 1887 because black and white students were being educated together. Tragically he died of typhoid fever in 1894. His successor, W.E.B. Dubois, became a towering figure in US life, as a sociologist, historian and activist.

Jennie and the children spent some time in Atlanta where they probably occupied apartments in South Hall, (the boys were enrolled in school in Atlanta) but also spent time in Stamford because young Alfred contracted typhoid but recovered. It is even recorded in the Bulletin of Atlanta University in December, 1890, that Jennie’s mother was their first northern visitor.

After John Howard Hincks’ death, the family moved back to Stamford where Jennie’s father, Rev. Thurston, died four months later in April, 1895. In 1897, Jennie, her mother and four children all moved to Chicago in order, “to give the boys what were deemed better advantages. In 1901, the family left Chicago for California where Percy was already settled having gone with Mrs. Thurston the year before…the family lived two years in San Francisco at 2906 Folsom St. and then moved to San Jose, 806 Davis St.

At the time of the big earthquake in 1906, Alfred was in San Francisco, the rest at home. The house was a mere shell, chimneys down, plumbing snapped, plaster off, foundations uprooted from ¾ of the house and all out of plumb. Workman worked all Sunday, getting house on jack screws for safety. Alfred reached home on the second night, having had only a few crackers for 48 hours. He escaped on a bicycle he purchased. On May 13, 1907, Mrs. Thurston died and the the family was broken up as none of the children were at home.” **

Jennie was firmly anchored in California for the rest of her life in spite of two European trips, the one to Italy in 1914 and a later one for 10 months in 1922 – 23 through many countries in Europe. She also spent some winters living with her grandchildren in the East after the premature death of her daughter, Margaret in 1919.

By 1914 when she went on her Italian trip, Jennie’s children had all married. Three of her four children, Percy, Alfred, and Florence remained in the Bay area of California as well as her younger sister, Marion, who was married to James Harry Pierce.

This trip to Italy seems to be Jennie’s first trip abroad, but her interest in languages and art had been fostered by her earlier experiences and education. Her interest in people shown in the diary might have been kindled by her exposure to many different people during her many moves within the United States. Coming from a strong religious background it is not surprising she sought out a church most Sundays in Italy.

Jennie was sent money from time to time mainly from Percy and Alfred. Marion whose husband was president of the Pacific Manufacturing Company in Santa Clara also sent money. It is clear that her stay in Italy was cut short by the war, as in her first months there she inquires about winter rates at some hotels. There is also the mention that living in Italy might be cheaper than in America, but Jennie does not find this is to be true.

In the diary, Jennie mentions the importance of a typewriter to make letters more legible. When she got back to California, she typed many letters to her son-in-law in the east that chronicle the latter part of her life and her involvement with family.

Jennie’s sister, Florence, died the following year in 1915, but Jennie lived a long active life caring for grandchildren and at one point sharing an apartment in the 1920’s in San Francisco with Helen Chase who joins them in Italy in the diary. She died November 14, 1933.

*The move south at this time is chronicled by Russell w. Irvine, “Coming South: the Reverend John Howard Hincks, A Five-Year (1889-1894) Window in the Development of Atlanta University and the Social Sciences,” Phylon, the Clark Atlanta University review of Race and Culture Vol. 49, No. 3-4 Pg. 229-266.

**From Margaret Howard Hincks Morse book of family genealogy, unpublished.