Thomas Hooker

Thomas Hooker: Preacher, Founder, Democrat by George Leon Walker
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Copyright, 1891, BY DODD, MEAD, AND CO.

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE

PREFACE

One striking difference in the advantages possessed by a biographer of the more distinguished personages of the Massachusetts and of the Connecticut colonies is the comparative destitution, in the latter case, of the aids afforded by contemporaneous diaries, histories, and portraits. The lack of such writings in the Connecticut annals is a little surprising; the want of portraits may be considerably accounted for by the remoter and poorer conditions of the inland settlement.

No portrait or other contemporaneous representation of Mr. Hooker remains. The picture which prefaces this volume is taken from Niehaus’s statue, ordered by the Commonwealth of Connecticut for the State Capitol; in the making of which the artist compared the likenesses of various and widely separated members of Mr. Hooker’s lineal posterity, among whom exists, however, a strong family resemblance.

Attired thus in the characteristic costume of the time, the figure affords a not improbably fair representation of the great Founder of the Colony.

The present writer had occasion, in 1884, in narrating the two hundred and fifty years’ history of the Hartford Church, of which Mr. Hooker was the first pastor, to publish, in a volume of local imprint and limited circulation, together with the biographies of subsequent pastors, the story of Mr. Hooker also.

Subsequent repeated visits to the scenes of Mr. Hooker’s English ministrations, as well as investigations at home, have added to the facts there narrated. Still, in addressing on the same theme the wider constituency of the MAKERS OF AMERICA series, the writer could not, without awkwardness and even affectation, avoid the frequent use of language in which he had already narrated the same biographical and historical incidents. He has therefore drawn without hesitation on his own previous statements, so far as the altered proportions of a separate biography and added facts and illustrations suited him to do.

The valuable bibliography of Mr. Hooker’s published writings (found in Appendix II.) was compiled by J. Hammond Trumbull, LL.D., to whom indebtedness is due, also, for the discovery and rescue from oblivion of the most important manuscript documents illustrative of Mr. Hooker’s chief title to remembrance.

HARTFORD, CONN., September 1, 1891.

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CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

1. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD ASSOCIATIONS. 1-17

II. EDUCATION AND RESIDENCE AT CAMBRIDGE 18-31

III. HOOKER’S ENGLISH MINISTRY 32-51

IV. LIFE IN HOLLAND AND DEPARTURE FOR AMERICA 52-70

V. IN MASSACHUSETTS AND REMOVAL TO CONNECTICUT 71-93

VI. HOOKER IN CONNECTICUT 94-154

Section I. . . . . . 94-II7

” II. . . . 118-133

” III. . . . . . 134-154

VII. THOMAS HOOKER’S WRITINGS 155-177

APPENDIX.

I. HOOKER’S WILL AND INVENTORY 178-183

II. HOOKER’S PUBLISHED WORKS 184-195

INDEX 197-203