Thomas Spottswood Hinde (1785-1846), son of Dr. Thomas Hinde, was a surgeon in the British Navy who settled in Virginia. He was born in Hanover County and moved with his family to Kentucky in 1797. There he had experience as a legal clerk, newspaper publisher, and land salesman before serving as clerk (1807-1810) of the Ohio House of Representatives. About 1810 he was licensed as a Methodist circuit preacher, then had charge of prisoners from the battle of Lake Erie (1813) and became a founder of Mount Carmel, Illinois (1817). In the 1820s and 1830s he engaged in various ministerial, journalistic, and business ventures in Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois, but spent his later years in Mount Carmel. A prolific author of articles for proposed or actual publication in newspapers and periodicals, he frequently wrote under pseudonyms; several-”Theophilus Arminius,” “The Fredonian,” “Western Emigrant,” “Western Pioneer,” “Western Christian Pioneer,” and “Visiter ( sic ) of the West”-have been identified in his papers, but there may have been others.
