George Leon Walker

Thomas Hooker: Preacher, Founder, Democrat; Biography of the Puritan Leader of Colonial New England George Leon Walker

Puritan minister, colonial pioneer, and inspiration for the first ever democratic constitution ? Thomas Hooker's fine example of religious and public service is explored in this biography. During his researches into the local history of Connecticut and the Hartford Church, George Leon Walker uncovered enough information to justify a biography of Thomas Hooker. After several years of meticulous research, corroborating historical sources, accounts and records of the early colonial period with Hooker's own surviving written works, he published this account of the great preacher's life and achievements in 1891. We follow Thomas Hooker from his youth in an England rent by religious conflict, through his education at Cambridge University, through initial demonstrations of his great and inspiring oratorical gifts. His sympathy for Puritanism in the 1620s disrupted his quiet life as a preacher and lecturer in England, and he was forced to leave the country for the Netherlands, and then onward to New England.