HINES FAMILY of VIRGINIA

Screenplay by Chad Stroman, David Whitsell, and Jeffrey Hines.

A Film to be displayed at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

In 1857, the President and Supreme Court Justice of the United States of America

attempted to make slavery universal...

one Virginia family stood in their way

...this is their story

Very rarely does a small story about a few ordinary people become a big story about a nation.

Join us on this courageous slaves epic 19th century journey across America.

SAMUEL BLOW HINES

A Film about a Judge during the Nat Turner Trial

In the 21st Century the laws of the United States clearly herald the end of slavery. In 18th Century Virginia, laws allowed for slavery's existence to flourish.

Thomas Jefferson inaccurately described slavery as holding a Wolf by its ears, we can neither safely hold it, nor release it. Self preservation on one hand, justice on the other.

In the Antebellum South, it was unusual to find men of stature opposing this barbaric institution.

Hidden in the attic of an 18th Century Virginia plantation were Samuel Blow Hines letters describing his life.

Our story is of two men and a legal system called Oyer and Terminer. A system of allegedly separate but equal laws that men were required to embrace and rule over.

Samuel Blow Hines, a student at William and Mary College in Virginia and his mentor St. George Tucker were good men. They lived through the turbulent times leading to the American Civil War.

Hines was a judge during the Nat Turner trial. He was given the best education and a large plantation by his parents. In the eight decades of his life he saw the nation expand west while his world contracted. When he passed at the ripe old age of 69 he had lost it all.

THE ESTHER

A Film about the fateful journey of an 18th Century sloop

Hidden along the muddy slow moving rivers, in the forests and swamps, of 18th Century Virginia, was the tiny port of South Quay.

Thomas Jefferson accurately described South Quay as hard for the British to get at.

In February of 1778, while the great British Man of Wars were blockading the Eastern seaboard, Joseph Mount and the fifty ton sloop Esther attempted to break free with her load of tobacco for the French Province of Martinique.

Joseph Mount was familiar with the route, he had made this journey many times before.

There is a log book describing the Esther's journey through the passageways leading down the mysterious Rivers of Virginia and North Carolina. It vividly describes the tense moments as the Esther heads out to the Atlantic Ocean and attempts to outrun the Man of Wars. The first mate describes the Esther's capture and deliverance to the British prison ship Jersey known as simply Hell by its occupants.

The log book and accompanying records are part of the Virginia Colonial Records Project. It was established by organizations including Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in order to restore some of the records of Virginia's colonial history destroyed by war or fire.

The agent that copied the log and records indicated that the log is in usual form beginning with the taking of the provisions at South Quay and going on to the incidents of the voyage. It starts in on February 12th 1778 and ends in March 17th. It is not of great interest.

We beg to differ.

The Key to the future of the World is finding the positive stories and let them be known.

Pete Seeger (1919-2014)

What the heroes in our personal and collective consciousness have been teaching us is to keep the big picture and the long run in mind while living in the moment—to think globally and act locally.

The Virginia story of the Hines family started on a ship called The Friendship which sailed from London England in early 1629. It had a long arduous voyage that arrived at Jamestown Virginia in August. There were 6 ministers on board including William Hines. This website tracks his journey through the 21st Century where over 68,000 Hines call the United States of America home. You are welcome to visit the other pages on this site.

Books for Sale

Contact Jeff Hines at jahines55@gmail.com

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please indicate if you would like the book signed by the author

Please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery

Meandering Across America

$ 19.99 Digital Copy Available

Five years touring the United States in an RV and on a tight budget.

HISTORIC STRUCTURES OF SOUTHAMPTON COUNTY

$ 50.00 plus shipping ($ 19.99 Digital Copy Available)

This book will appeal to a broad audience of young and old interested in learning about one of the earliest settlements in this nation. It features over 90 maps, drawings, seldom viewed black and white images, and high definition color photographs of Southampton Counties historic structures.

The Revolutionary Spirit

A Historical Novel about the Hines Family of Virginia during the American Revolution - $ 64.99 ($ 19.99 Digital Copy Available)

DRED SCOTT'S VIRGINIA

$ 74.99 ($ 19.99 Digital Copy Available)

In 1857, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, considered by historians to be an outstanding jurist along with a competent judicial administrator, with the stroke of his pen attempted to settle once and for all the status of slavery in this country. Taney issued the Dred Scott Decision in March of 1857. This is an attempt to tell the story of Dred Scott's early life.

Samuel Blow Hines

A Story of a Judge, bondage, and a President.

$ 19.99 Digital Copy Available

Samuel was a Judge during the Nat Turner Rebellion trial. This is a historical novel based on his bachelor life which spanned over eight fascinating decades, but in Virginia’s case these were regressive years. His life is preserved in the hundreds of letters that are part of the Richard Blow and Blow family collection located in the Special Collections section at the Library on the Campus of William and Mary University.

Subscribers please email me with your book order for special pricing

jahines55@gmail.com

The Hines Family

The Hines family journey starts in 17th century London England. This island kingdom controlled by a monarch was plagued by disease that killed roughly 20% of its population.

The church of England controlled your belief in God. Many London ministers did not believe the religion that King James preached and demanded they adhere to.

In this bleak setting in 1629, the first Hines to settle America, William Hines, was hearing stories of a new world located across a vast ocean to the west.

The America’s provided an opportunity for new freedoms and and a land of unlimited natural resources that the people of London dare not dream about.

Hines garnered up some courage, took a big chance, in dealing with the unknown that lay in front of him, and boarded an unseaworthy ship that set sail in April of 1629.

By August of 1629, after an arduous four month journey at sea, the good ship friendship arrived at the shores of Jamestown.

Hines was part of a society based on English law and a sense of order.

Due to fires, many of the 17th century records are gone. We can only surmise the sequence of William and his heirs during this time frame.

William survived an Indian uprising that wiped out a substantial portion of the Virginia colony in 1644.

References indicate that Hines probably settled as part of the Adam Thoroughgood party in the Chuckatuck area on the southeast portion of the James for the early part of the century.

Life must have been extremely hard in these early years in an attempt to tame the rugged wilderness. There were no schools, grocery stores, malls, newspapers, paved roads, hospitals, doctors, or the other necessities that we take for granted now.

But as advertised back in England they included new freedoms and opportunities.

Still under British rule, In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon organized the planters including William or his descendants. They burned Jamestown in a first attempt against authority and its abuses of power in the colonies.

A month later Bacon died and British rule was reestablished. Fearing retribution in the form of hanging from the British Governor by the name of William Berkeley the planters scattered to the safety of the Virginia wilderness.

Settlement by the British of Southampton had begun including such family names that are here today such as the Simmons, Rochelle’s, Hines, Blow’s, Briggs, Carys’, Camps, Francis, Kello's, Ridley's, Taylors, Urquharts, and many others.

In colonial British America, William Hines family settled on a plantation called Poplar Grove near the Sussex Southampton border near route 35 and the Nottoway River.

William quite possibly with his grandfather who arrived in America stood upon a scenic spot called Marl hill (I have a picture of this spot that I will show you in the Rochelle Prince house) of this scenic vista overlooking beautiful fields and forests of Southampton County and his several thousand acre Plantation.

His grandfather realized he had made the right decision in leaving England. William envisioned liberties and opportunities that his grandfather had hoped for. Not much has changed of this area from what it looked like more than three centuries ago but most everything else in this nation of three hundred million people has.

This vast tobacco plantation of William Hines that used enslaved labor prospered with the assistance and friendly cooperation of the Nottoway Indian tribe that lived nearby at Great Town.

The Hines neighbors included the Blow family who established a plantation called Tower Hill built in 1775 that still exists today.

As you view the Nottoway River here it is not difficult to imagine William Hines early 18th century flat bottom flat bottom Tobacco boats sailing southeast ailing southeast on this river from the Poplar Grove Plantation to the junction of the Blackwater river port of South Quay.

This bustling port was used for commerce and as an early military outpost and shipyard. Hines owned sailing vessels that would eventually ship goods to northern ports and European marketplaces.

17th Century William, his wife Elizabeth, and their nine children lived in a modest dwelling some 15 miles northwest west of here, the first documented Hines born in the Virginia Wilderness when Williamsburg was the Colonial Capital called Middle Plantation.

Meanwhile, during this time, the United States grew twelve fold. Before Independence was declared we were generating one third of the production that England obtained.

The Nottoway Tribe, the only Native Americans left in this area by 1735 had enough. They petitioned the British government to sell their reservation land near the Hines Plantation.

The story continues with 18th Century John, his wife Elizabeth, and their nine children who saw the colonies population growing from a group of European castoffs to several million people.

The seeds of American freedoms and liberties were growing, at an alarming pace as far as the King was concerned.

The British colonies were beginning to craft themselves into a new republic.

The year was 1748, Southampton County was formed with Richard Kello, the clerk of the court, also of England, recording the first transactions in the courthouse. Kello and his descendants continued to record the vital documents through the remainder of the century.

There was excitement in the air when Joshua and his wife Lucy gave birth to children that became the first citizens of the United States of America. A new country had been formed with its basis being a document called the Declaration of Independence.

Joshua died of unknown causes during the American war for Independence. Sheriff William Hines aided in the cause by storing guns for Washington’s troops in the Poplar Grove dwelling cellar. Major Thomas Ridley of nearby Rotherwood Plantation led the fight for freedom from Southampton county.

Benjamin, a child born in the year that the Declaration of Independence was signed was probably named for the man known as the first American, Benjamin Franklin.

The Hines family of Virginia planted Tobacco in the fields as an imperfect nation was established with the use of slaves to grow crops and Native Americans forced onto reservations.

Benjamin Jr. grew up around the time that four famous Americans named Turner, Scott,Thomas, and Mahone lived in Southampton County.

Benjamin lived in an era of the republics rapid expansion west, slave rebellions in the South, and finally a Civil War bringing a new birth of a nation. His farm was located near Sussex Southampton border. He moved to North Carolina after the Nat Turner Rebellion where he lived with his wife Sally and twelve children.

James Thomas, his brothers George, William, and John Henry survived four years of a violent and destructive war.

This led to the United States becoming the world's leading industrial power. The nation was fueled by the labor of new immigrants, in an age of inventions and unparalleled growth for a country that stretched from sea to sea.

As our nation entered the 20th Century, sharing an enthusiasm for entrepreneurship, Angus Henderson Hines, his wife Anna, and large family, worked side by side with African American's on a successful Southampton County farm outside of Boykins. William, my grandfather, and Garland, my father, saw this nation become the only superpower in the world by the late 20th century

William if he could return to Marl hill would see what the country has become and would undoubtedly be startled.

He would see the world’s largest national economy that currently out of over two hundred countries, supply’s almost one quarter of the goods and services produced annually.

We now produce over 18 trillion dollars in goods and services annually as a mixed service based economy.

He would see a currency that is used in most international transactions. Several countries use it as their official currency.

The United States has in fact been the world's largest economy since at least the 1890’s. Of the world’s 500 largest companies, 128 are headquartered in the United States.

William would see an affordable electric car on the horizon, an internet that reaches across the world generating 30% of the its commerce.

And most importantly of all we are an integrated society that thrives on the diversities of its cultures.

As my wife and I tour the country. We see the results of centuries of evolution and planning.

I often hear how the rich give back to the nation that made them wealthy and famous.

I view the outskirts of large towns a rising middle class in well built homes that are powered by renewable resources.

I also talk to and see the poor dedicated to educating themselves to make a better life for their families and improve the moral fabric of our country.

The United States still has most of its abundant resources, it has a well-developed infrastructure, and the highest productivity in the world.

It remains a beacon of hope for the world's 8 billion people that enjoy freedom and justice for everyone who live arrive within its borders.

December

2017

Trump soon to be indicted on Conspiracy against The United States and Money laundering.

By

Not fake news for everybody who has trouble understanding how 2 wealthy men came to power in two of the wealthiest countries in the world despite one working as a poorly paid KGB agent and the other facing financial ruin by declaring multiple bankruptcies and having more lawsuits filed against him than there are intelligent words in his vocabulary.

2000

Russia is in turmoil. Putin seizes power in Russia by putting the wealthiest person on trial. That person was put in a cage. The other wealthy people of Russia, especially bankers see this and decide to work for Putin agreeing to share their profits of their businesses 50/50. Because of this relationship by the end of the decade Putin is one of the wealthiest men in the world, worth billions.

During the first decade of the 21st Century Putin and his bankers used the only foreign bank that would work with Russia, Deutsche Bank of Germany. At the same time Trump facing financial ruin could not find capital to maintain his businesses in the United States. He met with Deutsche Bank (Putin’s bankers) who agreed to provide loans and investors for his real estate properties. Trump indicated to these devious men his ambitions to run for President.

Trump and Putin probably never met although the Russian Bankers met with Trump and his representatives. They formed an alliance that circumvented the existing laws and sanctions against Russia. The terms were Deutsche Bank would loan Trump millions and provide Trump with Investors to purchase his properties. The illegal investor money flowed through the Bank of Cyprus offshore accounts (similar to how Manafort structured his deals). This is included in Trump tax returns which he refuses to disclose but Mueller now has a copy and has subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for Trumps banking history with that institution.

Trump received a Russian bailout of his failing Real Estate Empire. Additionally, Putin agreed to assist in gaining Trump the highest office in the United States, spending millions to use the social media platform. In exchange Trump would remove the Russian sanctions that include some of Putin’s money once he gained office. Trump attempted to do this but failed when Congress stopped him. This is why Trump refuses to criticize Russia. If he did Putin would tell his bankers to call in Trump’s Deutsche Bank loans. This would ruin Trump’s real estate business and Trump personally. At least half of the Republican Senators in the United States Congress are aware of above now.

Walk With You - The Story of Dred Scott and the Blow Family of Virginia