Hooker

Territory, thus settling a violent controversy
during which both state and territory had called
out militia. In 1837 he prepared "A Map Illus-
trating the Plan of the Defenses of the West and
Northwestern Front, as Proposed by Charles
Gratiot" (Senate Document 65 and House Ex-
ecutive Document 59, 25 Cong., 2 Sess.). His
map of the "United States Territory of Oregon
West of the Rocky Mountains, Exhibiting the
Various Trading Depots or Forts Occupied by
the British Hudson Bay Company Connected
with the Western and Northwestern Fur Trade,"
compiled in 1838, accompanied a report from a
select committee to which was referred a bill to
authorize the President to occupy the Oregon
territory, and was republished several times with
other similar reports (see Senate Document 470,
25 Cong., 2 Sess., House Report 101,25 Cong., 3
Sess., and House Report 830,27 Cong., 2 Sess.).
The same map was also published in Wyndham
Robertson's influential work entitled Oregon,
Our Right and Title (1846). In 1839 Hood com-
piled a map showing the country adjacent to the
headwaters of the Missouri, Salmon, Lewis, and
Colorado rivers, with various observations on
the subject of practical passes or routes through
the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. It
remains in manuscript, but has been found to be
correct. When in 1839 President Van Buren
desired to make grants of land by law and to
issue patents to Indian tribes west of the Mis-
sissippi River, Hood was commissioned to make
the necessary survey. In his report he exposed
errors of previous surveys, but since correction
of these errors would have deprived the Shaw-
nees of valuable timberland and have caused a
clash of all the tribes bordering Arkansas and
Missouri, he advised against it. While on this
expedition he contracted a fatal disease and died
a few months later at Bedford Springs, Pa.

[G. W. Cullum, Bioff. Reg. Officers and Gratis. U. S.
Mil. Acad. (srd ed., 1891); T. W. Bean, Hist, of Mont-
gomery County, Pa. (1884); records of the Second
Presbyterian Church of Phila.; P. L. Phillips, A List
of the Geographical Atlases in the Lib. of Cong. (4
vols., 1909-20) ; G. M. Wheeler, Report upon U. S.
Geog. Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian,
I (1889), 545-46; Sen. Doc. 51 > 24 Cong., i Sess.;
Sen. Doc. 58,26 Cong., i Sess.; Pennsylvanian (Phila.),
July 23, 1840.] F.W.S.

HOOKER, ISABELLA BEECHER (Feb.
22, i822-Jan. 25, 1907), reformer, prominent in
the movement to secure equal rights for women,
was born in Litchfield, Conn., the daughter of
Rev. Lyman Beecher [#.z>.] by his second wife,
Harriet (Porter) Beecher. When Isabella was
four years old the family moved to Boston, where
her father became pastor of the Hanover Church;
and six years later, to Cincinnati, where he as-

Hooker

sumed charge of Lane Theological Seminary.
Here she attended the school established by her
sister, Catharine Beecher [q.v.], and in the stimu-
lating atmosphere of the Beecher home was early
awakened to an interest in theological questions
and public affairs. "Our family circle," she says,
"was ever in discussion on the vital problems of
human existence, and the United States Consti-
tution, fugitive slave laws, Henry Clay and Mis-
souri Compromise, alternated with free-will, re-
generation, heaven, hell, and The Destiny of
Man.'" After the death of her mother in 1835,
Isabella went to Hartford, Conn., to live with her
sister Mary, who had married a prominent law-
yer of that city, Thomas C. Perkins. In their
household she became acquainted with a young
law student, John Hooker, sixth in descent from
Thomas Hooker [#.#.], whom she married, Aug.
5, 1841. Until 1851 they lived in Farmington,
Conn., and then removed to Hartford. With his
brother-in-law, Hon. Francis Gillette [q.v.],
Hooker bought a hundred acres of land just out-
side the city and established Nook Farm, where
a community grew up which came to include
Charles Dudley Warner, Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Joseph R. Hawley, and Samuel M. Clemens
\_qq.v.]. Hooker became prominent in Hartford
legal circles, was recorder of the supreme court
of Connecticut for many years, and, being sym-
pathetic with his wife's views, cooperated with
her in her public activities.

Her interest in the status of women began in
her husband's office, where, as she knitted, he
read Blackstone to her. The theory of domestic
relations set forth by that writer, based on the
assumption that by marriage husband and wife
become one person in law, and that during mar-
riage the legal existence of the woman is sus-
pended, aroused her resentment. Because of un-
certainty of mind as to what course should be
pursued, and especially because of a long-stand-
ing* prejudice against Susan B. Anthony and
Elizabeth C. Stanton [qq.v.], it was some time
before she gave the woman's rights movement
whole-hearted support. An acquaintance formed
with Anna Dickinson [#.v.] in 1861, however,
and a later association with Paulina Wright
Davis [qv.], finally removed all misgivings, and
she became one of the most active and prominent
advocates of woman's suffrage in the United
States. She wrote two letters, purporting to be
from a mother to her daughter, on the subject,
which appeared in Putnam's Magazine, Novem-
ber and December 1868. The following year she
called the first convention held in Connecticut for
the discussion of women in government, and
formed the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Asso-

195