Connecticut Colony's Founder: Reverend Thomas Hooker & the Great Migration

In 1636, Reverend Thomas Hooker led ~100 Puritans from Newtown (Cambridge), Massachusetts, through wilderness to the Connecticut River valley—founding Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield as the Connecticut Colony.

Why They Left Massachusetts

• Hooker disagreed with Bay Colony's restricted franchise (church membership required to vote).
• Sought broader male suffrage and congregational autonomy.
• Land pressure: growing families needed meadows.

Hooker's Legacy

• Fundamental Orders (1639): First written constitution in America—popular sovereignty, elected legislature, term limits.
• Charter of 1662: Charles II granted remarkable self-governance (kept hidden in Charter Oak).
• Education: Hartford's Latin school → Yale lineage.

Hooker died 1647, but his "government by consent" DNA runs through Connecticut—and the U.S. Constitution.