Hooker

fused to discuss it, and in 1636, with a majority
of his congregation, he emigrated and settled at
what is now Hartford. In the more rarefied at-
mosphere of the small Connecticut population he
at once became, and deservedly remained, a lead-
en He was emphatically one of the founders of
that state. There was bitter feeling about the
split in the Bay Colony and Hooker did not hesi-
tate in his letters to claim that the Massachu-
setts authorities discouraged emigrants from
joining the younger offshoot Massachusetts
through a series of voluntary and involuntary re-
movals from the Bay was expanding into New
England, and Hooker was preeminently a New
Englander. Although at first opposing a synod
in connection with the Hutchinsonian contro-
versy, he changed his mind and at the synod held
in 1637 he was one of the two Moderators, jour-
neying back to Boston for the purpose. The main
result of the synod was the condemnation of
eighty-two erroneous or blasphemous opinions
which were abroad in the colonies. Hooker,
however, took advantage of the occasion to con-
tinue his discussions with Winthrop over the
possibility of a confederation of the several colo-
nies. His main dispute with Winthrop was on
the subject of democracy. Winthrop and the
other Massachusetts leaders opposed democracy
tooth and nail; Hooker was a born democrat In
the few Hooker-Winthrop letters which have
been preserved the conflict of opinion comes out
sharply. At the General Court of Connecticut
which apparently had the making of the Con-
necticut "constitution" in its charge (there being
no royal charter), Hooker preached his famous
sermon which has come down only in the form
of brief notes by a hearer (Walker, post, p. 125).
In it he took positions diametrically opposed to
the doctrines of Massachusetts, maintaining that
"the foundation of all authority is laid ... in
the free consent of the people"; that "the privi-
lege of election . . . belongs to the people"; and
that "they who have the power to appoint officers
and magistrates, it is in their power, also, to set
the bounds and limitations of the power and place
unto which they call them." The "Fundamental
Orders" which served as the constitution of
Connecticut were adopted in January 1639 and
embodied the democratic ideas of Hooker, who
undoubtedly had much to do with framing them.
He soon after went to Boston for another con-
ference on the formation of a New England con-
federation, but it was not until 1643 that his long-
cherished plan took tangible shape. In that year
he attended the convention held at Cambridge,
Mass., which was assembled for the purpose of
combating the Presbyterian tendencies in the

Hooker

churches and reemphasizing the "Congrega-
tional way." He and Cotton were the two Mod-
erators. Hooker and John Davenport [q.v.]
were chosen to reply to two books recently pub-
lished in England and to defend the Congrega-
tional system. Each wrote a volume and both
were dispatched for printing to England in that
fated ship which left New Haven with so much
of the goods and hopes of the colony and was
never heard from afterward. Both authors re-
wrote their works, though Hooker did so very
reluctantly, and his was not published until after
his death (A Survey of the Summe of Church-
discipline, 1648). In it he answered Samuel
Rutherford's The Due Right of Presbyteries
(1644), point by point, a method which makes
the book today rather dull and repetitious. As
a kind of preface, however, he presented a state-
ment of Congregational principles in one page,
which was approved by all the ministers of Con-
necticut and many of the other colonies, and
which is as clear an exposition of Congregation-
alism as has ever been given. Aside from this
important work, he had been a fairly voluminous
writer. J. Hammond Trumbull \_q.v."} in his bib-
liography, mostly sermons, lists thirty items
(G. L. Walker, post, pp. 184 ff.). Hooker died
in 1647, one of the victims of an epidemic sick-
ness. There is no portrait of him, the statue in
the Connecticut State House having been made
by the dubious method of comparing the like-
nesses of his numerous descendants. He was
married at Amersham, Bucks, Apr. 3, 1621, to
Susan Garbrand (Buckingham Parish Registers
—Marriages—vol. IV, 1908, p. 13). It is stated
in Edward and M. H. Hooker's Descendants of
Rev. Thomas Hooker (1909) that he was twice
married, but no authority is given. Three chil-
dren survived him.

[Cotton Mather, Magnolia Christi Americana (2
vols., 1853), ed. by Thomas Robbins; G. L. Walker,
Thomas Hooker, Preacher^ Founder, Democrat (1891) ;
J. and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses (1922), vol.
II; John Bruce, Calendar of State Papers: Domestic
Series ... 1628-1629 (1859), 1629-1631 (1860), 1633-
1634 (1863); Records of the Governor and Company

of the Mass. Bay, vol. I (1853); Winthrop's four. (2
vols., 1908), ed. by J. K. Hosmer; W. B. Sprague, An-
nals Am. Pulpit, vol. I (1857) ; WilHston Walker, The

Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism (1893);
Diet, of Nat. Biog.1 J. T. A.

HOOKER, WILLIAM (fl. 1804-1846), en-
graver, first appears as one of the "artists" em-
ployed in making the maps for the American edi-
tion of Pinkerton's Modern Geography,publi$hzd
in Philadelphia in 1804. Soon thereafter he was
in Newburyport, Mass., his name appearing
among those admitted to membership in the
Agile Fire Society "at or soon after the date of

20O