Thomas Hooker was born in Leicester, England, in 1586. He became a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and was for three years worked as a Puritan lecturer in Chelmsford.

Hooker lived in Holland for three years before emigrating to America in 1633. Hooker settled in Massachusetts Bay and became a minister in Newtown (Cambridge). In 1636 he moved with his congregation to Connecticut, and founded the town of Hartford. Thomas Hooker died in 1647.