1. Thomas Hooker was a prominent English colonial leader and Congregational minister, who founded the Connecticut Colony after dissenting with Puritan leaders in Massachusetts.
27 Facts About Thomas Hooker
1. 2.
Thomas Hooker was known as an outstanding speaker and an advocate of universal Christian suffrage.
3.
Thomas Hooker was one of the great preachers of his time, an erudite writer on Christian subjects, the first minister of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and one of the first settlers and founders of both the city of Hartford and the state of Connecticut.
4.
Thomas Hooker has been cited by many as the inspiration for the "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut", which some have described as the world's first written democratic constitution establishing a representative government.
5.
Thomas Hooker was likely born in Leicestershire at "Marfield" or Birstall.
6.
Any link to the Rev Richard Hooker is likewise lacking since the Rev Thomas's personal papers were disposed of and his house destroyed after his death.
7.
Thomas Hooker received his Bachelor of Arts in 1608 and his Master of Arts in 1611.
8.
Thomas Hooker was appointed to St George's Church, Esher, Surrey in 1620, where he earned a reputation as an excellent speaker.
9.
Thomas Hooker became noted for his pastoral care of Mrs Joan Drake, the wife of the patron.
10.
Thomas Hooker was a depressive whose stages of spiritual regeneration became a model for his later theological thinking.
11.
Around 1626, Thomas Hooker became a lecturer or preacher at what was then St Mary's parish church, Chelmsford and curate to its rector, John Michaelson.
12.
In 1629 Archbishop William Laud suppressed church lecturers, and Thomas Hooker retired to Little Baddow where he kept a school.
13.
Thomas Hooker arrived in Boston and settled in Newtown, where he became the pastor of the earliest established church there, known to its members as "The Church of Christ at Cambridge".
14.
Thomas Hooker disagreed with this limitation of suffrage, putting him at odds with the influential pastor John Cotton.
15.
Thomas Hooker strongly advocated extended suffrage to include Puritan worshippers, leading him and his followers to colonize Connecticut.
16.
Thomas Hooker argued for greater religious tolerance towards all Christian denominations.
17.
Thomas Hooker defended the calling of synods by magistrates, and attended a convention of ministers in Boston whose purpose was to defend Congregationalism.
18.
Thomas Hooker later published A Survey of the Summed of Church-Discipline in defense of Congregationalism, and applied its principles to politics and government.
19.
Thomas Hooker disagreed with many of the predecessor theologies of Free Grace theology, preferring a more muted view on the subject.
20.
Thomas Hooker focused on preparation for heaven and following the moralist character.
21.
Thomas Hooker came to the colonies with his second wife, Suzanne.
22.
Thomas Hooker's son Samuel, likely born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard College in 1653.
23.
Thomas Hooker became minister of Farmington, Connecticut, where his descendants lived for many generations.
24.
Thomas Hooker's daughter Mary married Rev Roger Newton, who was a founder and first minister of Farmington, Connecticut.
25.
Thomas Hooker married the daughter of William Leete of Guilford, Connecticut, and subsequently settled there.
26.
James Thomas Hooker served as the first probate judge, and later as speaker of the Connecticut colonial assembly.
27.
On May 16,1890, descendants of Thomas Hooker held their first reunion at Hartford, Connecticut.