Thomas Hooker - Family

Family

Thomas Hooker came to the colonies with his second wife, Suzanne. Nothing is known of his first wife.

His son Samuel, likely born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard College in 1653. He became the well-known minister of Farmington, Connecticut, where his descendants lived for many generations. Of Rev. Samuel Hooker, Cotton Mather wrote in Magnalia Christi Americana: "Thus we have to this day among us our dead Hooker, yet living in his worthy son Samuel Hooker, an able, faithful, useful minister at Farmington, in the Colony of Connecticut."

John Hooker, son of Rev. Samuel and grandson of Rev. Thomas, served as Speaker of the Connecticut Assembly, and previously as Judge of the state supreme court. James Hooker, brother of John and son of Rev. Samuel, also became a prominent political figure in Connecticut. He married the daughter of William Leete of Guilford, Connecticut, and subsequently settled there. James Hooker served as the first probate judge, and later as speaker of the Connecticut colonial assembly. Rev. Thomas's granddaughter Mary Hooker, the daughter of Rev. Samuel, married the Rev. James Pierpont. Their daughter Sarah Pierpont married the Rev. Jonathan Edwards.

Other direct descendants of Rev. Thomas Hooker include Henry Hooker, Mary Hooker Pierpont, William Howard Taft, Timothy Dwight V, Aaron Burr, William Gillette, William Huntington Russell, Edward H. Gillette, George Catlin, Emma Willard, J.P. Morgan, Rev. Joshua Leavitt, Roger Hooker Leavitt, Hart Leavitt, Thom Miller, and Adonijah Rockwell. On May 16, 1890, descendants of Thomas Hooker held their first reunion at Hartford, Connecticut.