HOOKER, THOMAS: Founder of the colony of Connecticut; b. at Markfield (10 m. n.w. of Leicester), Leicestershire, probably July 7, 1586; d. at Hartford, Conn., July 7, 1647. He was educated at Cambridge, became a fellow of Emmanuel College, and about 1620 received the living of Esher, Surrey. He held this position for six years, when he accepted a lectureship, or post as supplementary Puritan preacher, at Chelmsford, Essex, but though orthodox in doctrine, his Puritanical objections to Anglican ritual brought him into conflict with Laud. In 1629 he appeared before the archbishop, but proceedings were stayed for the time, and Hooker opened a school at Little Baddow, Essex, with John Eliot as his assistant. Renewed complaints of his Puritanism in the following year, however, caused him to leave England for Holland, where he re mained three years, preaching successively at Amsterdam, Delft, and Rotterdam. In 1633 he sailed for America with John Cotton, and arrived at Boston Sept. 4. On Oct. 11 he was chosen pastor of the first church at Newtowne (now Cambridge), and became a freeman on May 14 of the following year. His influence increased rapidly, and in Oct., 1635, he was one of the principal opponents of Roger Williams. The rivalry between Newtowne and Boston, as well as between their pastors, however, caused Hooker, together with the greater part of his congregation and accessions from the churches of Dorchester and Watertown, to remove to the Connecticut valley, where Hartford was founded in 1636. In the following year he was one of the moderators of the Cambridge synod which condemned the doctrines of Anne Hutchinson (see Antinomianism and Antinomian Controversies, II. 2), and in 1639 he addressed a letter to Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, in which he advocated a confederation of the New England colonies for mutual protection against the Dutch, French, and Indiana. This proposal resulted in the organization, four years later, of the "United Colonies of New England," the earliest system of federal government in America. In 1642 he was invited by the Parliamentary Independents to be a delegate with John Cotton and John Davenport to the Westminster Assembly, but declined. Hooker was a prolific writer, his principal works being as follows: The Soul's Preparation for Christ (London, 1632); An Exposition of the Principles of Religion (1640); A Survey of the Sum of Church Discipline (1648), an anti-Presbyterian apology which had much influence in the development of American Congregationalism; The Application of Redemption (1656); and The Poor Doubting Christian Drawn to Christ (1684).

Bibliography: A selection of Hooker's works and a Memoir were published by a descendant, E. W. Hooker, Boston, 1849. Sources for a life are in Cotton Mather's Mapnaiia, vol. iii., London, 1702; B. Trumbull, Complete History of Connecticut, New Haven, 1818. Consult: W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, i. 80-37, New York, 1859; Johns Hopkins University Studies, vol. vii., Baltimore, 1881); G. L. Walker, Thomas Hooker, Preacher, Founder, Democrat, New York, 1891; W. Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 137-148 et passim, its. 1893; ides, in American Church History Series, vol. UL passim, its. 1894; idem, New England Leaders, passim, its. 1901; A. E. Dunning, Congregationalists in America, pp. 120-150, its. 1894; L. W. Bacon. The Congregationalists, pp. 61, 92, its. 1904.