Who helped to start the colony of Connecticut?

The Connecticut Colony was founded in 1636 by a group of English Puritans led by Reverend Thomas Hooker. Hooker and his congregation were part of the Great Migration of Puritans from England to America in the early 1630s. They were seeking to escape religious persecution and to establish a new colony based on their own religious beliefs. The Connecticut Colony was one of the most successful of the New England colonies and became a major center of Puritan culture and influence in the region.