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Mary was the daughter of Samuel Hooker and Mary Willet. She married the Reverent James Pierpont as his 3rd wife and bore him at least 7 children. As usual, little is written about her but a lot about her male relatives.
Mary, like many of the Hooker women, was described as a rare beauty. The portrait to the right is from the Library of Congress collection.
Pierpont genealogy
Below is a selection of Pierpont genealogies
The ‘Mary Apron’
You may think the existence of an apron dating from the first half of the 18th century is a piece of trivia and telll us nothing about the life of women like Mary Hooker. Think again!
The apron is made of Chinese taffeta with chinese silk threads embroidered in a wide variety of stitching styles. The material was expensive, the thread was expensive and it took many hours of leisure to embroider such a beautiful piece. The pattern is based on English patterns, but there is a particular colonial style to it none the less.
Olivia Scott explains:
Unraveling the History of theHooker-Pierpont-Russell-Talcott Family Apron
The Connecticut Museum has the apron
The Puritan City of the Dead
A number of famous — and some infamous — people lie buried under the cellar floor of the Center Church of New Haven.
Husband
Rev. James Pierpont 1659-1714. Mary was his 3rd wife. They married in 1698 in New Haven, Connecticut. Below is the inscription on his gravestone.
Children
- James 1699-1776
- Samuel 1700-1718 – drowned crossing the Connecticut River in a canoe
- Mary 1703-1740
- Benjamin 1707-1725 – Died on Virgin Gorda, an island close to Puerto Rico.
- Joseph 1704-1748
- Sarah 1709-1758 married noted colonial minister Jonathan Edwards in 1727. She herself was a missionary. She is one of the few women in this study who have been awarded a biography. She was an author. And at the age of 13 she evoked a devotion in Jonathan that lasted a lifetime.
- Hezekiah 1712-1741
Details
From Wikipedia:
James Pierpont or Pierrepont (January 4, 1659 – November 22, 1714) was a Congregationalist minister who is credited with the founding of Yale University in the United States.
Pierpont was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on January 4, 1659. He was one of five children born to John Pierpont and his wife, Thankful (née Stow) Pierpont (1629–1664), daughter of John Stow. His father, who was born in London in 1619, was a Roxbury town officer and a deputy to the general court before his death in 1682.[1]
He attended The Roxbury Latin School and Harvard College.[1]
Pierpont became an ordained Congregationalist minister on July 2, 1685. In 1701, he secured the charter for The Collegiate School of Connecticut, which soon thereafter took the surname of its chief benefactor, Elihu Yale. He served as a founding trustee of Yale from October 16, 1701, until his death in 1714.
Pierpont was married three times and lived in New Haven at what was known as the Pierpont Mansion.[1] His first marriage was on October 27, 1691, to Abigail Davenport (1672–1691), the daughter of John Davenport and Abigail (née Pierson) Davenport. Abigail died on February 3, 1692, from a cold she caught shortly after their marriage. His second wife was Sarah Haynes (1673–1696), whom he married on May 30, 1694. Sarah was the daughter of Rev. Joseph Haynes and Sarah (née Lord) Haynes, and the granddaughter of Governor John Haynes. She died on October 27, 1696, after giving birth to their only child, Abigail.
He died on November 22, 1714, in New Haven, Connecticut, where he was buried.[5] His widow died on November 1, 1740.[6]
Pierpont’s descendants also include U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr, financier John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan, Edwards Pierrepont, and songwriter James Lord Pierpont, best known for “Jingle Bells“.[6]