Hi, Snuff.

The Hook's prostitutes were real, and eveventually notorious, but the word "hooker" may or may not go back quite as far as 1816.

Corlear's Hook is just south of the Williamsburg Bridge. There is now a park where the slums used to be. I've been there.

A direct connection between Corlear's Hook and "hooker" was first made in John Russell Bartlett's _Dictionary of Americanisms_ (2nd ed., 1859):


"Hooker. A resident of the Hook, i. e. a strumpet, a sailor's trull. So called from the number of houses of ill-fame frequented by sailors at the Hook (i. e. Corlear's Hook) in the city of New York."


"Hooker" is not in the first edition (1848). But just because Corlear's Hook was a red-light district is not proof that it gave its name to "hooker."

Librarian George Thompson of New York University recently turned up a pre-1845 example of "hooker" from the "N.Y. Transcript" of September 25, 1835, p. 2:

"Pris[oner].: ...he called me a 'hooker'.
Mag[istrate].: What did you call her a 'hooker' for?
Wit[ness].: 'Cause she allers hangs round the hook, your honner."


The passage makes nothing explicit, but obviously "hooker" was some sort of insult. Whether the later, wider use of the term came directly from Corlear's Hook, or whether there were other contributing elements is unknown. (For example, streetwalkers could well have been described as "hooking" their customers, no matter where they were.)

The scant evidence is enough to prove absolutely that General Joseph Hooker did not inspire the word "hooker." Without doubt it was in use in NYC in 1859, and in North Carolina in 1845. (It would be interesting to know how it got there.) It seems almost beyond reasonable doubt that it was in use in NYC even earlier, in 1835, and at least some people at that time were connecting it with Corlear's Hook.

Before 1835, all is conjecture. That's just the nature of much etymology.