1636-HARTFORD
(Massachusetts) Governor Winthrop's son John, then twenty-nine years of
age, arrived at Boston from England in October. He bore a commission as
governor of the Connecticut territory, from the proprietors of the soil.
With him came Hugh Peters, his senior by six years, and Henry Vane, only
twenty-four years of age, who were joint commissioners with him,
instructed to build a fort and plant a colony at the mouth of the
Connecticut River. They were directed to gather the scattered settlers
near the fort but these were left where they had planted themselves. Other
measures were taken to secure the possession of the territory and peace of
the colony. Governor Bradford had denounced as "an unrighteous and
injurious intrusion," the settling of Massachusetts people upon the lands
on the Connecticut which the Plymouth people had purchased from the
Indians, not considering that the "Plymothians," as the Dutch called them,
were equally intruders upon the territory of New Netherland, according to
English doctrine. And the Connecticut commissioners perfected their
usurpation of the territorial authority of the Netherlands by driving
away, by force of arms, a Dutch vessel which came into the river to
protect the rights of the West India Company.
"Might makes right," was the stern rule among the nations then and the
cannon at the mouth of the river gave a warrant for the more important
emigration of the English to the Connecticut Valley, which occurred in the
summer of 1636. The dispute with the Plymouth people was amicably
settled. Arrangements having been made for the accommodation of new
settlers on the site of Hartford, the Rev. Thomas Hooker, a
zealous nonconformist minister, who came to Boston from his refuge in
Holland in 1633 led a company of one hundred men, women, and children
thither. He was accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Stone. Their followers
consisted of their families and congregations. The emigrants drove before
them one hundred and sixty head of cattle. The cows of the herd, pasturing
in grassy savannas which they found on the way, gave them an ample supply
of fresh milk. They had no pathway, and were guided only by a compass.
Through thickets and morasses, and over streams they made their way,
clearing away here with axes, making causeways and bridges there with
felled trees, and resting in shady groves. The women and children were
conveyed in wagons drawn by oxen, and Mrs. Hooker, who was an invalid, was
carried on a horse litter.
The
company had ample provisions and were regaled on the way by delicious
strawberries growing in abundance in open places. The songs of birds and
the fragrance of flowers afforded them exquisite delight in the midst of
the weariness of travel. They made easy stages, consuming a fortnight in
the journey of a hundred miles. It was ended when, on the fourth of July,
they stood on the beautiful banks of the Connecticut, under the shadows of
great trees and trailing vines, and sang hymns of praise to the Good
Father. On the following Sabbath, Mr. Hooker preached and administered the
Lord's Supper in the little chapel on the site of Hartford, which the
first colonists there had erected. Some of the new comers settled at
Wethersfield, and others went further up the river and founded
Springfield.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Thomas Hooker
1586-1647, Puritan clergyman in the American colonies, chief founder
of Hartford, Conn., born in Leicestershire, England. A clergyman, he was
ordered to appear before the court of high commission for nonconformist
preaching in England and fled (1630) to Holland. In 1633, Hooker
immigrated to Massachusetts, where he was pastor at Newtown (now
Cambridge). He had a dispute with John Cotton and apparently was
discontented with the strict theological rule in Massachusetts. After a
group of settlers had been sent ahead in 1635, he and many of his flock
moved in 1636 to found Hartford, where he was pastor until his death.
Hooker was one of the drafters of the Fundamental Orders (1639), under
which Connecticut was long governed and which represent his political
views. He also promoted a plan for the New England Confederation.
A Biographical Sketch of Thomas Hooker
Thomas Hooker was born in July of 1586 in Marfield, Leicestershire,
England. His father was a yeoman. Thomas attended a grammer school
established by Sir Wolstan Dixie at Market Bosworth, about 25 miles from
Marfield. From there he went on to Queens College, Cambridge, and then to
Emmanuel College, graduating with a BA in 1608 and an MA in 1611. He
remained on at Emmanuel College until 1618 as a Dixie fellow and
catechist.
It was while at Emmanuel College that Hooker was geniunely converted
after going through a lengthy time of spiritual agony. Cotton Mather tells
us, "It pleased the spirit of God very powerfully to break into the soul
of this person with such a sense of his being exposed to the just wrath of
Heaven, as filled him with most unusual degrees of horror and anguish,
which broke not only his rest, but his heart also."
About 1620 he became rector of St. George's in Esher, Surrey. He was
received into the home of the patron of the church, Francis Drake, having
been recommended by John Dod to aid Drake's wife, Mrs. Joan Drake, who was
both spiritually and emotionally distressed. Joan Drake believed she was a
reprobate and that she had committed the unpardonable sin. In her numerous
discourses with Dod and others "the upshot of it all was, That she was a
damned reprobate, must needs go into hell forever; that her heart was
harder than an Adamant or Anvil, that God had forsaken her, and given her
over to a reprobate sense, her hard heart could not repent, and that in
all her actions she but heaps up wrath against the day of wrath to her
further condemnation...that it was in vain and too late for her to use
means; and therefore, she would use none." Hooker's counsel along with
that of Dod and Dr. John Preston brought Mrs. Drake through her spiritual
troubles and at length to an ecstatic conversion shortly before her death
on April 18, 1625. The remarkable story of Mrs. Drake's conversion was
recorded in a work entitled Trodden Down Strength (London, 167), later
republished as The Firebrand Taken Out of the Fire. While living at the
Drake house, Hooker met and fell in love with Susannah Garbrand, Mrs.
Drake's woman-in-waiting. They were married on April 3, 1621 in Amersham,
Mrs. Drake's birthplace. Their first child was named after her. The
insight given Hooker by the Lord in the circumstances of his own
conversion and that of Mrs. Drake had a permanent effect upon his
understanding of conversion. He devoted most of the rest of his life to
preaching and teaching on preparation for grace. As far as his own
abilities in dealing with souls under conviction of sin, Cotton Mather
tells us: "indeed he now had no superior, and scarce any equal, for the
skill of treating a troubled soul."
After leaving the Drake household Hooker became acquainted with Rev.
John Rogers of Dedham who undertook efforts to have him settled at
Colchester, but the providence of God blocked the way and brought him
instead to Chelmsford in Essex where he became the lecturer in St. Mary's
Church in 1626. Benjamin Brooks in The Lives of the Puritans writes: "His
lectures were soon numerously attended, and a remarkable unction and
blessing attended his preaching. A pleasing reformation also followed, not
only in the town, but likewise in the adjacent country. By a multitude of
public houses in the town, and by keeping the shops open on the Lord's
day, the people of Chelmsford had become notorious for intemperance and
the profanation of the sabbath. But by the blessing of God, so plentifully
poured out upon Mr. Hooker's ministry, these vices were banished from the
place, and the sabbath was visibly sanctified to the Lord."
The joy of the people of Chelmsford was short-lived and in 1629 Bishop
William Laud threatened him with arraignment before the High Commission
for his non-conformity and Puritanism. Late in 1629 Hooker was silenced
and forced to leave his lectureship. He moved to Little Baddow, about five
miles from Chelmsford, where he opened a grammar school with John Eliot as
his assistant. There godly ministers came to him for consultation and
spiritual direction in handling of difficult cases. In a letter written by
Samuel Collins, vicar of Braintree, Essex, to Dr. Arthur Duck, Laud's
chancellor, Collins warned about the dangers of dealing rashly with Hooker
because of his great popularity: "All would be here very calme and quiet
if he might quietly departe...If these jealousies...be increased by a
rigorous proceeding against him, the country may prove very dangerous." In
the same letter, Collins continues: "His genius will still haunt all ye
pulpits in ye country where any of his scholars may be admitted to
preach...There be divers young ministers about us that spend their time in
conference with him, and return home to preach what he hath brewed. Our
people's pallats grow so out of taste, that noe food contents them but of
Mr. Hooker's dressing. I have lived in Essex to see many new ministers and
lecturers, but this man surpasses them all for learning and some
considerable partes, and gains far more and far greater followers than all
before him."
On November 3rd, Dr. John Browning, rector of Rowreth, Essex, again
complained to Laud about Hooker. One week later Laud received a petition
signed by forty-seven ministers of Essex supporting Hooker, saying in
part, "We all esteeme and knowe the said Mr. Thomas Hooker to be, for
doctryne, orthodox, and life and conversation, honest, and for his
disposition, peaceable, no wayes turbulent or factious."
In 1630 Hooker was cited to appear before the High Commission Court;
however, being ill at the time, Mr. Nash, an honest yeoman and Puritan,
voluntarily was bound to a sum of fifty pounds for Hooker's later
appearance. Upon his recovery, Hooker was advised by his friends that it
would be wiser to forfeit the bond than to throw himself any more into the
hands of his enemies. Hooker agreed and several people in the Chelmsford
area reimbursed his surety, Mr. Nash, whereupon, Hooker fled to the
Netherlands. There he entered into ministry with John Forbes, a Scottish
minister, at the English Non-Conformist church in Delft. He remained there
about two years and then received a call from Rotterdam to assist the
celebrated Dr. William Ames, which he accepted. During his stay in
Rotterdam he authored the Preface to Dr. Ames' book A Fresh Suit Against
Human Ceremonies in God's Worship. Hooker, however, did not find the state
of religion in the Netherlands to be as he had supposed. In a letter to
John Cotton he wrote: "The state of these provinces, to my weak eye, seems
wonderfully ticklish and miserable. For the better part, heart religion,
they content themselves with very forms, though much blemished; but the
power of Godliness, for aught I can see or hear, they know not; and if it
were thoroughly pressed, I fear least it will be fiercely opposed." Thus
dissatisfied with the state of heart religion in the Netherlands, Hooker
returned secretly to England preparing to travel with his family to New
England. In July of 1633 he boarded the Griffin at the Downs to sail for
Massachusetts. Also aboard the same ship were Samuel Stone and John
Cotton. The Griffin docked at Boston in September, after an eight week
journey, and Hooker and Stone removed to Newtown (soon after renamed
Cambridge), where a group of his former parishioners from the Chelmsford
area had settled, calling themselves "Mr. Hooker's company." On the 11th
of October, a fast day, Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone were chosen as the
Pastor and Teacher of the Church of Newtown. John Cotton became the
Teacher of the Boston church. The church led by Hooker and Stone prospered
and in 1635 one of the church's leading members, John Haynes, was elected
governor of the Massachusetts Bay.
Both Hooker and the members of his church soon became restless in their
location in Newtown. The reason for this restlessness has been the subject
of speculation, but cannot be definitely determined. On May 31, 1636 a
majority of the congregation migrated westward across the wilderness, led
by Hooker and Stone, to a site along the Connecticut River which they
named Hartford, after Stone's birthplace in Hertford, England. There
Hooker undertook once again the work of establishing a new community and
church. Thomas Hooker remained a leader in both the religious and
governmental arenas for the remainder of his life. In 1637 he was called
on to serve as one of two Moderators over the inquiry into antinomian
doctrines being promulgated in the colonies, primarily by Mrs. Anne
Hutchinson and her followers. The inquiry lasted for three weeks and
resulted in the condemnation of eighty-two erroneous doctrines and
blasphemous opinions being taught. Not all of the eighty-two doctrines
were subscribed to by Mrs. Hutchinson.
The substance of Mrs. Hutchinson's teaching seems to have been
1) that since a believer was indwelt by the Holy Spirit, he was not
subject to divine or human laws because he was led immediately by the
inner promptings of the Spirit, and
2) that sanctification cannot help us evidence our justification, or the
leading of a moral life was irrelevant to whether or not one was saved.
In brief, it did not matter what a man did, what mattered was the
leadings of the Spirit with him.
Mrs. Hutchinson was excommunicated from her church in Boston and she and
her brother-in-law, John Wheelright, were banished. Thomas Shepard, one of
the prosecutors of the case when it came to trial, probably came the
closest to summing up the issue when he stated that Mistress Hutchinson
"never had any trew Grace in her hart. 9 Hooker was not present for the
trial, having returned to Hartford at the end of the three-week inquiry.
Sargent Bush, Jr. makes a good case for Hooker's posthumously published
work The Saint's Dignitie and Dutie (1651) being his response to the
antinomian issue in his work, The Writings of Thomas Hooker. Thomas Hooker
was a leader in the area of government as well. In May of 1638 he was
asked to address the General Court of Connecticut which apparently had
been given the responsibility of drafting a constitution. It was there he
preached his famous sermon on Deuteronomy 1:13: Take you wise men, and
understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers
over you. "In this sermon he laid down three doctrines. Doctrine I. That
the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own
allowance. Doctrine II. That the privilege of election which belongs unto
the people must not be exercised according to their humour, but according
to the blessed will of God. Doctrine III. That they who have the power to
appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power also to set the
bounds of the power and the place unto which they call them." In January
1639 the "Fundamental Orders" were adopted, serving as the constitution of
Connecticut. Thomas Hooker's leadership and influence in the final
document has been recognized by historians.
Hooker's reputation remained strong even in England and in the summer
of 162 letters arrived at Boston inviting Thomas Hooker, John Davenport,
and John Cotton to represent New England at the Westminster Assembly of
Divines. Hooker declined to attend although he apparently tried to have an
influence on the assembly by the publication of two books and a catechism
in London in 165.
The books were A Brief Exposition of the Lord's Prayer and Heaven's
Treasury Opened in a Faithful Exposition of the Lord's Prayer. The
catechism was entitled An Exposition of the Principles of Religion. Hooker
was a man given to much prayer. Cotton Mather reports, "He would say,
'That prayer was the principal part of a minister's work; 'twas by this,
that he was to carry on the rest.' Accordingly, he still devoted one day
in a month to private prayer, with fasting, before the Lord, besides the
publick fasts, which often occurred unto him. He would say, 'That such
extraordinary favours, as the life of religion, and the power of
godliness, must be preserved by the frequent use of such extraordinary
means as prayer with fasting; and that if professors grow negligent of
these means, iniquity will abound, and the love of many wax cold.'" Mr.
Henry Whitfield a godly man who knew the most considerable divines in
England, after becoming acquainted with Thomas Hooker wrote, "I did not
think," says he, "there had been such a man on the earth, in whom shone so
many incomparable excellencies; and in whom learning and wisdom were so
admirably tempered with zeal, holiness, and watchfulness."
Thomas Hooker died a victim of an epidemic sickness on July 7, 1677.
"When one that stood weeping by the bedside said unto him, 'Sir, you are
going to receive the reward of all your labours,' he replied, 'Brother, I
am going to receive mercy!'"
Cotton Mather called him "the Light of the Western Churches." Dr.
Thomas Goodwin said of him, "if any of our late Preachers and Divines came
in the Spirit and power of John Baptist this man did."
There is no known portrait of Thomas Hooker. A statue which has stood
by the Old Connecticut State House near the site of the First Meeting
House of the Hartford church, was made by comparing the likenesses of his
descendants. Some of his numerous works include The Poor Doubting
Christian Drawn to Christ (1629), The Soul's Preparation for Christ
(1632), The Soul's Humiliation (1637), The Soul's Ingrafting into Christ
(1637), The Soul's Exaltation (1638), The Christian's Two Chief Lessons
(160), An Expostion of the Principles of Religion (165), A Brief
Exposition of the Lord's Prayer (165), A Survey of the Summe of Church
Discipline (168), The Saint's Dignitie and Dutie (1651), and The
Application of Redemption (1656-57).
- - - - William C. Nichols
Founders of Hartford
The
following is a list of names of the Founders of Hartford that are engraved
on the Founders Monument in the Ancient Burying Ground, also sometimes
referred to as the "Old" or "Center" Cemetery. The original brownstone
Monument erected in 1837 was replaced by one of pink Connecticut granite
in 1986. The cemetery is located at the rear of the First Congregational
("Center") Church at the corner of Main and Gold Streets in Hartford.
Jeremy Adams
Matthew Allyn
William Andrews
John Arnold
Andrew Bacon
John Barnard
Robert Bartlet
John
Baysey
Richard Butler
Francis Andrews
John Bidwell
Thomas Birchwood
William Bloomfield
Thomas Bull
Thomas Bunce
Benjamin Burr
William Butler
Clement Chaplin
Richard Church
John Clark
Nicholas Clark
James Cole
John Crow
Robert Day
Joseph Easton
Edward Elmer
Nathaniel Ely
James Ensign
Zachariah Field
William Gibbons
Richard Goodman
Ozias Goodwin
William Goodwin
Seth Grant
George Graves
Samuel Greenhill
Samuel Hale
Thomas Hale
Stephen Hart
William Hayden
John Haynes
Thomas Hooker
William Hill
William Holton
Edward Hopkins
John Hopkins
Thomas Hosmer
William Hyde
Thomas Judd
William Kelsey
William Lewis
Richard Lord
Thomas Lord
Richard Lyman
John Marsh
Matthew Marvin
John Maynard
John Moody
Joseph Mygatt
Thomas Olcott
James Olmsted
Richard Olmsted
William Pantrey
William Parker
Stephen Post
John Pratt
William Pratt
Nathaniel Richards
Richard Risley
Thomas Root
William Rusco
Thomas Scott
Thomas Selden
Richard Seymour
John Skinner
Arthur Smith
Thomas Spencer
William Spencer
Thomas Stanley
Timothy Stanley
Thomas Stanton
Edward Stebbing
George Steele
John Steele
Goerge Stocking
Samuel Stone
John Talcott
William Wadsworth
Samuel Wakeman
Nathaniel Ward
Andrew Warner
Richard Webb
John Webster
Thomas Welles
William Westwood
John White
William Whiting
John Wilcox
Gregory Wolterton
George Wyllys