Samuel Hooper

Hooper was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts. His father, Robert Hooper, was a shipping merchant and later served as president of the Grand Bank of Marblehead.The bank was chartered in 1831 and occupied a building on Hooper Street in Marblehead. {{cite web| title =The National Grand Bank … A Brief History …| url =https://www.ngbank.com/about-us/history-of-the-bank| access-date = September 5, 2014}} After a common school education, Hooper traveled aboard his father's shipping vessels as supercargo. He is known to have visited Cuba, Russia, and Spain.{{cite book | last =Brown | first =John Howard | title =Lamb's biographical dictionary of the United States | publisher =James H. Lamb | date =1901 | location =Boston, Massachusetts | url =http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/john-howard-brown/lambs-biographical-dictionary-of-the-united-states-465/page-30-lambs-biographical-dictionary-of-the-united-states-465.shtml}}

In 1832 Hooper married Ann Sturgis, daughter of William Sturgis, and he became a junior partner in the Boston firm of Bryant and Sturgis, merchants in the California hide trade, trade with the Pacific Northwest, and trade with China.

In 1841, Hooper partnered with counting house owner and merchant shipper William Appleton to form William Appleton and Company. Soon the firm was engaged in the California hide trade, trade with the Pacific Northwest, and trade with China. The firm acquired additional partners in 1851 when Appleton joined the Massachusetts congressional delegation.{{Citation | title =William Appleton and Company records, 1813-1889 | place =Baker Library Historical Collections | publisher =Harvard Business School | year =1927 | url =http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~bak00190}}

In 1859, Appleton retired from William Appleton and Company. Hooper reorganized the firm with partner Franklin Gordon Dexter, and they adopted the name Samuel Hooper and Company. The firm continued operations after Hooper's death.

Hooper was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, serving from 1851 to 1853. He later served in the Massachusetts Senate in 1858.

Upon the resignation of his friend and former partner, Congressman William Appleton from the United States House of Representatives, Hooper was elected to fill the seat, representing Massachusetts's fifth district in the 37th Congress.

He was reelected to the following six congresses representing Massachusetts's fourth district and served as chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means 1869 to 1871, of the Committee on Banking and Currency from 1871 to 1873 and of the Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures from 1871 to 1875.

Image:Samuel Hooper.gif

From 1861 to 1862, his home in Washington D.C. was the headquarters of General George B. McClellan. In 1866, he was a delegate to the Philadelphia Loyalists' Convention.

He turned down reelection to the 44th Congress and died less than a month before completion of his final term.{{Citation | title =Samuel Hooper Collection | place =Special Collections Research Center | publisher =Syracuse University Libraries | url =http://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/h/hooper_s.htm}} He was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery in 1875.

Hooper was briefly the father-in-law of Charles Sumner, a powerful senator from Massachusetts. Sumner had married Hooper's widowed daughter-in law, Alice Mason Hooper, but they divorced after a short marriage.

In 1865 Hooper founded the Hooper School of Mining and Practical Geology at Harvard University with an endowment of $50,000. The gift also established the Sturgis Hooper Professorship in Geology. Named in honor of Hooper's deceased son Sturgis, the professorship received an additional endowment of $30,000 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US-GDP|value=30000|start_year=1881}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}) from Hooper's widow in 1881.{{cite book | title =Harvard University Bulletin | publisher =Harvard University | volume =2 | date =1881 | location =Cambridge, Massachusetts | pages =301–302 | url =https://books.google.com/books?id=V1AMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA301}} The city of Hooper, Nebraska, is named after him.{{cite web|title=Profile for Hooper, NE|url=http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=27429|access-date=7 August 2014|publisher=ePodunk|archive-date=8 August 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808061659/http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=27429|url-status=dead}}{{cite book|author=Fitzpatrick, Lillian L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dlas_EPVGFEC|title=Nebraska Place-Names|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|year=1960|isbn=0803250606|pages=54}} A [http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=englishunsllc 1925 edition] is available for download at [http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ University of Nebraska—Lincoln Digital Commons.]

• [https://archive.org/details/cihm_22516 Currency or money: its nature and uses and the effects of the circulation of bank-notes for currency (1855)]
• [https://archive.org/details/anexaminationth00hoopgoog An Examination of the Theory and the Effect of Laws Regulating the Amount of Specie in Banks (1860)]
• [https://archive.org/details/adefencemerchan00hoopgoog A defence of the merchants of Boston against aspersions of the Hon. John Z. Goodrich, ex-collector of customs (1866)]

• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899)

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category}}

{{CongBio|H000765}}

• {{Find a Grave|12478820}}
• {{citation |title=Samuel Hooper papers, 1829-1874 |url=https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms007124 }}. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

{{s-start}}

{{s-par|us-hs}}

{{s-bef|before=William Appleton}}

{{s-ttl|title=Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Massachusetts's 5th congressional district|years=1861–1863}}

{{s-aft|after=John B. Alley}}

|-

{{s-bef|before=Alexander H. Rice}}

{{s-ttl|title=Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Massachusetts's 4th congressional district|years=1863–1875}}

{{s-aft|after=Josiah G. Abbott}}

|-

{{s-bef|before=Robert C. Schenck}}

{{s-ttl|title=Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee|years=1871}}

{{s-aft|after=Henry L. Dawes}}

|-

{{s-bef|before=James A. Garfield}}

{{s-ttl|title=Chair of the House Banking Committee|years=1871–1872}}

{{s-aft|after=Horace Maynard}}

|-

{{s-bef|before=William D. Kelley}}

{{s-ttl|title=Chair of the House Coinage Committee|years=1872–1875}}

{{s-aft|after=Sherman Otis Houghton}}

{{s-end}}

{{US House Ways and Means chairs}}

{{US House Financial Services chairs}}

{{USRepMA}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hooper, Samuel}}

Category:1808 births

Category:1875 deaths

Category:Burials at Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)

Category:Harvard University people

Category:Republican Party Massachusetts state senators

Category:Massachusetts Unionists

Category:Republican Party members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives

Category:People from Marblehead, Massachusetts

Category:Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts

Category:19th-century members of the Massachusetts General Court

Category:19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives