Governor Ben W. Hooper was born Bennie Walter Wade in Newport, Cocke County, on October 13, 1870, the illegitimate son of Sarah Wade and Dr. Lemuel Washington Hooper. The child and his mother moved to Dandridge, Mossy Creek (now Jefferson City), New Market, and finally Knoxville, where his mother placed the boy in the care of St. John's Orphanage of the Episcopal Church. At the age of nine, he was legally adopted by his father, who changed the boy's name to Hooper and raised him in Newport.