Hooker

formation are given in E. W. Root, Philip Hooker
(1929). For measured drawings by J. L. Dykeman of
some of Hooker's buildings see Architecture, Dec. 1916,
Dec. 1917, May, June, Sept. 1919; and the Architec-
tural Record, Feb., Mar. i g 16. ] E. W. R.

HOOKER, THOMAS (is86?-July 7, 1647),
Congregational clergyman, was born probably in
1586 according to Cotton Mather (post, I, 333),
and G. L. Walker (post, p. i) adds July 7 as the
probable day, but there appears to be no con-
vincing evidence even of the year; Marfield, Lei-
cestershire, England, seems to have been his
birthplace, though one authority (Venn, post,
II, 403) gives Birstall. His father was Thomas
Hooker, a yeoman. It is possible that the boy
attended a school at Market Bosworth, about
twenty-five miles from Marfield, established by
Sir Wolstan Dixie together with two fellowships
at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, one of which
was later held by Hooker. He entered Queen's
College, Cambridge, and passed to Emmanuel
College from which he received the degree of
A.B. in 1608, and that of A.M. in 1611. From
1609 to 1618 he was Dixie fellow at Emmanuel.
About 1620 he became rector of Esher, Surrey,
the living being one which did not require the
approbation of a bishop. His Puritan leanings
became more developed at this time and he fell
much under the influence of the Rev, John
Rogers of Dedham. Efforts were made to settle
him at Colchester but for some reason were un-
successful, and about 1626 he became "lecturer"
at St. Mary's, Chelmsford. There his preaching
attracted great public attention and the malevo-
lent eye of Laud. Hooker hoped he would not be
brought before the High Commission and that
he could leave the diocese peaceably. He was
forced to retire from Chelmsford and went to
Little Baddow, not far away, where he opened a
school, with the celebrated John Eliot [q.vJ\ as
his assistant. In 1630 the spiritual court sitting
at Chelmsford bound Hooker in the sum of £50
to appear before the High Commission, and a
Puritan farmer went surety for him. Several of
Hooker's friends raised the amount necessary to
indemnify the good farmer, and Hooker aban-
doned his bond and fled to Holland. He stayed
for a while at Amsterdam and then for two years
was the associate minister of the English Non-
Conformist church at Delft. From there he went
to Rotterdam where he was associated with the
Rev. William Ames. For the latter's A Fresh
Suit Against Human Ceremonies in Gods Wor-
ship (1633) Hooker wrote a long preface.

At this time the Puritan exodus to the West
Indies and Massachusetts was well under way.
Hooker had for some time been in correspond-
ence with the Rev. John Cotton [#.z/.], who had

Hooker

been considering whether to go to Holland, Bar-
bados, or Massachusetts. Meanwhile, a group of
Puritans from the general neighborhood of
Chelmsford had gone to the place last named,
and were known as "Mr. Hooker's company"
because they had been his parishioners or listen-
ers in England. Negotiations were started to
have Hooker and Cotton go over as colleagues
but proved futile, the members of the congrega-
tion wisely consoling themselves with the cryptic
remark that "a couple of such great men might
be more serviceable asunder than together"
(Mather, post, I, 434). Both decided to emi-
grate, however, and Hooker went to London to
arrange his affairs. Here the authorities got on
his trail and the officers of the law even knocked
at the door of the room in which he lodged, but
his friend Samuel Stone [q.v.], who was to ac-
company him to New England, made sufficiently
misleading remarks to save the minister from
annoyance and any confusion of conscience
(Ibid., I, 340). He soon set sail for America in
company with Cotton and Stone, the noted trio
arriving at Boston Sept. 4, 1633. Massachu-
setts was delighted to receive such recruits. They
said that they now had "Cotton for their clothing,
Hooker for their fishing, and Stone for their
building" (G. L. Walker, post, p. 74). On Oct
21, Hooker and Stone were chosen pastor and
teacher of the congregation at Newtown. Hooker
was soon called upon to take his part in one of
the chief of the innumerable controversies in the
colony and to answer Roger Williams [q.v.] in
debate. Williams lost at the moment to win out
a century or two later, the laurels of the day
going to Hooker. When Endecott cut the cross
out of the national ensign, Hooker wrote a pa-
per on the subject in which he quietly con-
demned Endecott's action. Hooker's church
prospered and in 1635 his leading member, John
Haynes {.q.v.] was elected governor of Massa-
chusetts Bay.

The Newtown people, however, had always
been somewhat restless in the Bay Colony. Al-
though surmises are easy, it is not possible to
declare just what the trouble was. For some
time they had considered removal and had spied
out certain possible sites for a new colony, It
was claimed that they were "straitened" for want
of land, but the difficulty appears to have been
more intellectual or emotional or political than
agricultural. The leading members of Hooker's
congregation, Haynes and Goodwin, became
very restive. It was finally decided to move
to Connecticut. Cotton preached and argued
against the exodus, and the General Court op-
posed the project in consequence. Hooker re-

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