[GOVERNOR HINCKLEY'S VERSES ON THE DEATH OF HIS SECOND CONSORT.]
[Thomas Hinckley was the last Governor of the Plymouth Colony, which office he held, except during the interruption by Andros, from 1680 to 1692, when that colony was joined to the Massachusetts colony. He was a man of worth and piety. The following lines, composed by him on the death of his second wife, are copied from one of three volumes of the manuscripts of Rev. Thomas Prince, which are now in the possession of the Rev. Chandler Robbins of this city.
It is hardly necessary to inform our readers, that Thomas Prince, colleague pastor of the Old South Church in Boston from Oct. 1, 1718, to Oct. 22, 1758, was a most diligent and careful collector of public and private papers, relating to the religious and civil history of New England, and that many of his valuable books and manuscripts have been deposited by the church to which he ministered, in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
The following brief sketch of the connection between Thomas Prince and Gov. Hinckley, and of some of the descendants of the latter, may be appropriate as an introduction to this poetic effusion.
In the manuscript volume above referred to, Rev. Thomas Prince has recorded a genealogical table prepared by himself, in which he states that he was "the fourth son of Samuel Prince, Esq., of Sandwich, who was the son of Elder John Prince, who came over in 1633, and settled first at Watertown and afterwards at Hull, who was the eldest son of Rev. John Prince of East Shefford, in Berkshire, Eng., who was born of honorable parents, educated in the University of Oxford, and was one of the Puritan ministers of the Church of England who in part conformed."
The father of Rev. Thomas Prince, Samuel Prince, Esq., married in 1686, for his second wife, Mercy Hinckley, the eldest daughter of Governor Hinckley by his second wife.[34] They had ten children; namely, Thomas, Mary, Enoch, John, Joseph, Moses, Nathan, Mercy, Alice, Benjamin.
Thomas married Deborah Denny. One of their daughters became the wife of Lieut. Governor Gill.
Mary married the Rev. Peter Thatcher.