HUTCHINS, Thomas, geographer, born in Monmouth, New Jersey, in 1780; died in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 28 April, 1789. Before he was sixteen he entered the British army as an ensign, and became paymaster and captain of the 60th Royal American regiment. He was assistant engineer in the expedition of General Henry Bouquet (q. v.) in 1764, and took part in a campaign against the Florida Indians. When he was in London in 1779 his known devotion to the cause of American independence caused his imprisonment for six weeks on a charge of maintaining correspondence with Benjamin Franklin, who was then in France. By this imprisonment he is said to have lost £12,000. He soon afterward went to France, and thence to Charleston, South Carolina, where he joined General Nathanael Greene, and received the title of "geographer-general." He furnished the maps and plates of Dr. William Smith's "Account of Bouquet's Expedition" (Philadelphia, 1765); and is the author of "A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina" (London, 1778); "History, Narrative, and Topographical Description of Louisiana and West Florida" (Philadelphia, 1784); three papers in the "Philadelphia Transactions" (1775-'6 and 1783)" and one in the "Transactions of the American Society."