Zibeon Hooker was born in Medfield, Mass. in 1752, the son of William and Mary Hooker. In 1779 he married Sarah Barber. He began his military career at 17, as a musician in the Sherborne Company of Minute Men. He arrived at the Battle of Bunker Hill as a drummer, but when his drum was destroyed by a musket ball, he took up arms and joined the fight. The next year he fought in the British evacuation of Boston. In 1777 he enlisted with the Fifth Massachusetts Regiment, with whom he fought at Ticonderoga and Valley Forge. He continued his service under Washington until the Continental Army was disbanded in 1789, at which point he moved with his family to Newton, Mass., where he died in 1840.