He was the grandson of General Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys and hero of Ticonderoga, and the son of Judge Samuel Hitchcock.

He traveled by flat boat down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, eventually arriving in Mobile on January 22, 1816, after a brief stay in Natchez.

On May 14, 1818, six months after the creation of the Alabama Territory, Hitchcock was appointed its first secretary by Governor William Wyatt Bibb.

Two sons were Henry Hitchcock (1829-1902), a prominent attorney in St. Louis, Missouri, and Ethan Hitcocock (1835-1909), served as United States Secretary of the Interior under William McKinley.

[2] Hitchcock was also a very astute businessman, reputedly the wealthiest man in Alabama before feeling the effects of the Panic of 1837.