Thomas Hooker

Puritan minister, colonial pioneer, and inspiration for the first ever democratic constitution – Thomas Hooker’s towering example of religious and public service is explored in this biography.

During his researches into the local history of Connecticut and the Hartford Church, George Leon Walker uncovered enough information to justify a biography of Thomas Hooker. After several years of meticulous research, corroborating the historical sources, accounts and records of the early colonial period with Hooker’s own surviving written works, he published this account of the great preacher’s life and achievements in 1891.

We follow Thomas Hooker from his youth in an England increasingly rent by religious conflict, through his education at Cambridge University, through initial demonstrations of his great and inspiring oratorical gifts. His sympathy for the Puritan movement in the 1620s disrupted his quiet life as a preacher and lecturer in England, and he was forced to leave the country for the Netherlands. After trying to vain to gain reconcile, Hooker emigrated to New England.

Initially staying in the fledgling colony of Massachusetts, Hooker soon set up a ministry in Connecticut. His talents were welcomed by the Puritans, and he became a distinguished, active and admired local figure who welcomed the influx of new arrivals to the community. Perhaps his most crowning achievement was inspiring the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut – the world’s first example of a constitution of representative, democratic government.