He was known as an outstanding speaker and an advocate of universal Christian suffrage. Called today "the Father of Connecticut ", Rev. Thomas Hooker was a towering figure in the early development of colonial New England. He was one of the great preachers of his time, an erudite writer on Christian subjects, the first minister of Cambridge, Massachusetts , one of the first settlers and founders of both the city of Hartford and the state of Connecticut, and cited by many as the inspiration for the " Fundamental Orders of Connecticut ", which some have called the world's first written democratic constitution establishing a representative government.
Other Hooker genealogists, however, have traced Thomas Hooker to Leicestershire. Positive evidence linking Thomas to Leicestershire is lacking since the Marefield parish records from before perished. Any link to the Rev. Richard is likewise lacking since the Rev. Thomas's personal papers were disposed of and his house destroyed after his death.
Hooker was appointed to St George's Church , Esher , Surrey in , where he earned a reputation as an excellent speaker [4] [7] and became noted for his pastoral care of Mrs. Joan Drake, the wife of the patron. She was a depressive whose stages of spiritual regeneration became a model for his later theological thinking. While associated with the Drake household, he married Susannah Garbrand, Mrs. Drake's woman-in-waiting April 3, in Amersham , Mrs.
Drake's birthplace. Around , Hooker became a lecturer or preacher at what was then St. Forfeiting his bond, Hooker fled to Rotterdam in the Netherlands , [7] and considered a position in the English Reformed Church, Amsterdam , as assistant to its senior pastor, the Rev.
John Paget. Hooker arrived in Boston and settled in Newtown later renamed Cambridge , where he became the pastor of the earliest established church there, known to its members as "The Church of Christ at Cambridge. Hooker's Company". Voting in Massachusetts was limited to freemen , individuals who had been formally admitted to their church after a detailed interrogation of their religious views and experiences.
