20 Feb. 1768–18 Oct. 1843
Charles Hooks, planter, legislator, and congressman, was born in Bertie County. At age two, he moved with his parents to Duplin County where the family settled on a plantation near Kenansville. His sister Mary ("Polly") married Ezekiel Slocumb and they were the parents of Jesse, a member of Congress.
In adulthood, Hooks became a planter like his father. He served in the North Carolina House of Commons from 1801 to 1805, and in the senate in 1810 and 1811. A Democrat, Hooks was elected to the Fourteenth U.S. Congress to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of William R. King. He served from 2 Dec. 1816 to 3 Mar. 1817, and was reelected for full terms in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Congresses (4 Mar. 1819–3 Mar. 1825).
After leaving public service, Hooks moved from North Carolina to Alabama in 1826 and settled near Montgomery. There he resumed the agricultural life of his earlier years until his death. Hooks was interred in the Molton family cemetery on Laurel Hill near Montgomery.