William Hooker

Background

William Hooker was born in 1804. No further information about his place of birth or family can be found.

Career

Hooker first appears as one of the "artists" employed in making the maps for the American edition of Pinkerton's Modern Geography, published in Philadelphia in 1804. Soon thereafter he was in Newburyport, Massachussets, his name appearing among those admitted to membership in the Agile Fire Society "at or soon after the date of its organization" (1805).

In 1807 he produced a copperplate engraving of the Wolfe Tavern for Prince Stetson & Company, the proprietors, which is still in existence. The following year, in conjunction with Gideon Fairman, he was engraving and publishing children's writing or copy books, and in 1809 thirteen of the maps in the American Coast Pilot, published at Newburyport by Edmund M. Blunt, carried Hooker's name. He was also employed by Little & Company, the Newburyport publishers, to make engravings for the first American edition of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (1810).

When the Embargo and the Non-Intercourse Acts of the Jefferson administration brought "the stillness of the grave" to Newburyport, Blunt moved his business to New York and Fairman departed for Philadelphia. Hooker moved first to Philadelphia, affiliating himself there with the Columbian Society of Artists, but later he moved to New York to assist in the production of Blunt's Stranger's Guide to the City of New York (1817).

He established himself as an "engraver and copperplate printer" at the same address as that of Blunt's "chart store, " on the East River front. He made the city plan for the Stranger's Guide and became more and more closely identified with the store. In 1821 he was the proprietor, and in 1822 the tenth edition of the American Coast Pilot, "published by Edmund M. Blunt for William Hooker, " carried an advertisement of the books, charts, and nautical instruments for sale at his "Navigation Store. "

In 1824 he published a New Pocket Plan of the City of New York not only "Compiled & Surveyed" but "Drawn, Engraved, Printed, Published and Sold by W. Hooker, Instrument Maker and Chart Seller to the U. S. Navy. " This was followed about 1827 by a pocket map of New York state, with various statistical tables in corners and margins, and in 1831 by one of the earliest maps of its kind, a chart of the Atlantic Ocean, showing "the character and rout of a Storm which occurred on the American coast in August 1830. " The city map in Theodore Sedgwick Fay's Views in New-York and its Environs (1831) was also his work.

By 1830 he had given up his "chart and quadrant store" and was calling himself simply a "copper plate printer and map publisher. " The latest engravings to bear his name appear with date 1846 in the 1848 edition of Nathaniel Bowditch's New American Practical Navigator.

Achievements

• Hooker is best known as an active map engraver and publisher. He issued a number of pocket plans of New York City. His maps are known for their extreme detail.

Works

More photos

• book

  • 1838 Map York Hooker's Pocket Plan The City York Hooker, William (Engraver)|Historic Antique Vintage Reprint|Ready to Frame

    (1838 map of New York Hooker's new pocket plan of the city...)

  • 1824 Map York Hooker's Pocket Plan The City York Hooker, William (Engraver)|Historic Antique Vintage Reprint|Ready to Frame

    (1824 map of New-York Hooker's new pocket plan of the city...)

  • 1831 Map Yor Map The City York Hooker, William (Cartographer)|Vintage Fine Art Reproduction|Ready to Frame

    (1831 map of New Yor Map of the city of New-York Hooker, W...)

  • 1830 Map York Erie Canal, York Hooker, William (Engraver)|Historic Antique Vintage Reprint|Ready to Frame

    (1830 map of New York Erie Canal, New York Hooker, William...)

Connections

No information about Hooker's family is available.