Nicholas Arnould Hentz (1756-1832) was a native of Coblentz in Lorraine, France, and a member of the Revolutionary National Convention of 1789. He was forced to flee France under the assumed name of Charles Arnould with his family after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1815. He and his wife, Therese d'Aubree, had at least two sons: Nicholas Richard Hentz (1786-1850), who served as a captain in the French Imperial Army from 1806 to 1815, and Nicholas Marcellus Hentz (1797-1856), a painter, professor, and well known entomologist, author of a famous monograph on the spiders of the United States.
Nicholas M. Hentz taught at the University of North Carolina from 1826 to 1830. He married Caroline Lee Whiting (1800-1856), a native of Lancaster, Mass., a playwright and novelist popular during the 1850s. Together they ran a succession of female academies in Covington, Ky., Cincinnati, Ohio, Florence, Ala., Columbus, Ga. and Tuskegee, Ala. The Hentz family finally settled in Marianna, Fla., where Caroline Lee Hentz concentrated on her writing and the care of her invalid husband. They had four children: Charles Arnould Hentz (1827-1894), who was a physician and citrus grower; Thaddeus William Harris Hentz (1830-1878), a dentist; Julia Louisa Hentz Keyes (1828-1877); and Caroline ("Callie") Therese Hentz Branch (b. 1833).
Charles A. Hentz (1827-1894) was born in Chapel Hill, N.C. and was a doctor near Quincy, Fla. In 1854 he married Elizabeth (Bettie) Hentz. They had five children: Sallie Lee Hentz (1855-1888), William Booth Hentz (b. 1860), Julia Keyes Hentz Dumbar (b. 1862), Rebecca ("Bexie") Hentz (b. 1865), and Charles Arnould Hentz Jr. (b. 1870). During the Civil War in 1862, Charles A. Hentz worked at the military hospital in Quincy, Fla. Following Bettie Hentz's death in 1871, Charles A. Hentz married Cornelia Fitzgerald Munroe (1852-1894). The family moved in 1881 to City Point, Fla., and operated a citrus farm on the Indian River. In 1890 they returned to Quincy, Fla.
William Booth Hentz (b. 1860), son of Charles A. Hentz, immigrated in 1890 to Rio De Janiero, Brazil, with his siblings Charles Arnould Hentz Jr. (b. 1870) and Julia Keyes Hentz Dumbar (b. 1862). He married Ella Hentz, who died in 1899. He later married Anita Vianna Hentz (b.1882).