Detail from a stained glass window depicting Thomas Hooker, Center Church, Hartford, by Louis Comfort Tiffany, ca. 1900s.

Thomas Hooker (1586–1647)

Thomas Hooker was born in a small English village in 1586. He attended Emmanuel College at Cambridge University where he decided to become a minister. Opposition to his Puritan beliefs, however, encouraged Hooker to immigrate to America. In 1636, three years after his arrival in Boston, Hooker and one hundred members of his congregation headed south and founded a new colony on the site of modern-day Hartford, Connecticut. Two years later, one of Hooker’s sermons served as the inspiration for the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut which established civil government for the Colony of Connecticut. An influential preacher as well as civic leader, Hooker died during an epidemic in the summer of 1647.

Learn More

Documents

Yale University. “Manuscripts: Sermon Notes Held in the Collection of the Beinecke Library,” 2016. Link.
Connecticut Digital Archive. “Thomas Hooker Collection,” n.d. Link.

Books

Hooker, Thomas. Reverend Thomas Hooker’s Letter, in Reply to Governor Winthrop. Hartford, CT: Connecticut Historical Society, 1860. Link.
Hooker, Thomas. The Poor Doubting Christian Drawn to Christ: Wherein the Main Hindrances, Which Keep Men from Coming to Christ, Are Discovered: With Special Helps to Recover God’s Favour. Hartford, CT: Robins & Smith, 1845. Link.
Bush, Sargent. The Writings of Thomas Hooker: Spiritual Adventure in Two Worlds. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980.
Archibald, Warren S., and Tercentenary Commission of the State of Connecticut. Thomas Hooker. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1933.
Shuffelton, Frank. Thomas Hooker, 1586-1647. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.
Walker, George Leon. Thomas Hooker: Preacher, Founder, Democrat. New York, NY: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1891. Link.
Williams, George H., ed. Thomas Hooker: Writings in England and Holland, 1626-1633. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.