HOOKER, TtioNiAs (e.13Sti-10-17). A NOW England clergyman, the real founder of the t ',doily of Connecticut. lit was horn at Slarkfield, England. and was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of 11.A. iu 100s, and that of SIA. in NIL After holding a fellowship for some time at Cambridge, he became, about 10•0, rector of a little church at Esher. in Surrey. In ll2ii he accepted a lectureship at Chelmsford. Essex, he soon W011 renown as an eloquent preach er, but by this very prominence attracted the attention of Land. then Bishop of London, to his Puritanism. In Slay, he appeared before Laud, and was threatened by 111111 with action of nigh Commission. and in the following year, upon being cited to appear before that tribunal. he left England and settled in llolland. Lt llolland he remained for three years, preaching in the English churches at Delft, and Rotterdam. In 103:I he sailed for New England. on the same ship with 'John Cotton (q.v.). settling in N•wtowne (('ambridge) in (tviober of that year, :and being admitted a free man in the following spring. lie was chosen pastor of the first church ? it Newtown>. on Octo ber 11. 103:3. and soon afterwards became one of the most influential clergymen in the Colony. II was who in october. 1635. argued with Roger Williams before the Cameral Court. There was something of a spirit 14 rivalry, not only between the people of Newt owne and Boston. but between their principal pastors, !looker and Cotton. As early as \lay, 1034, the people of Newtowne com plained to the Contra] Court that they did not have room •nomdi, and sought either for per mission to extend their boundaries or remove to a new location, and in July they sent a small party into the Conneeticut Valley to find a suit able place. The matter was temporarily adjusted by extension of the town limits, but the spirit of unrest remained, and in 10:16 Sir. Booker and his chureli, with large from the churches at Dorchester and Watertown, removed into the Connecticut. Valley. The New
towne church members established themselves at Hartford. but the influence of 1Tooker extended also to the towns of Windsor and Wethersfield, which were settled by others who had followed his lead into the new country. But it is not only as the load. r and moving spirit of the now settlements that. Hooker deserves to be known, but as the inspirer, if not the actual author, of the Fundamental Laws which delegates from the several river towns adopted for their government 1639. In .fanuary, 1639, llooker accompanied John Baynes. the first Covernor of Connecticut, to Boston to confer with Winthrop concerning a proposed confederation of the New England settlements to provide for their mutual defense against the Dutch. the Indians, and the Freneh. The year 1(113 saw the result of their labors in the successful org:thizat ion of the 'Milted Colonies of New England.' the first attempt at federal goVel'11111e111 in .Vaserica. Ilooker published a great many sermons, and also: 7•/0 ,tioub's /Yip/ration for Christ chi32); The Nestle's Implantation (1637) ; The Noulc's ling into t'hrist (1637); souic's Exaltation ( I1i38) ; The •oulc's location slit .Exposition of the l'rinciphs Itcligion (16:1))); The Saint's tinide I(it5) ; Nun., y of the i;14111111(' of ('hunch Disciplinc a defense of the New England churches which had great. influence in the devel• opulent of Congregationalism in ...1ine•ica. Con sult : \Valker, Thomas in the ...Makers of .\inerica Series" ( New York, 1891); \Vall:er, History of the Eirst Church in /Inc/ford (Ilart ford. ISS:I) ; Johnston, ('onnecticut, in the nierien ;I Common wea It lis Series" ( Bost on, 1878) dohns //opkins vii. 1 Baltimore, IsS9) ; Cotton Slather. May/fa/in I mericatut (London, 17(2 )