Anne Marbury

     Anne Marbury was born circa July 1591 at Alford, Lincolnshire, England.² She was the daughter of Francis Marbury and Bridget Dryden.^2,3 Anne Marbury was baptized on 20 July 1591 at Alford, Lincolnshire, England.⁴ She married William Hutchinson, son of Edward Hutchinson and Susanna (?), on 9 August 1612 at Church of Saint Mary Woolnoth, London, England; William Hutchinson was a prosperous cloth merchant, and the couple returned to Alford marriage. The Hutchinson family considered themselves to be part of the Puritan movement, and in particular, they followed the teachings of the Reverend John Cotton, their religious mentor.
John Cotton was relocated to the Puritan colonies of Massachusetts Bay in 1634; the Hutchinsons soon followed with their fifteen children, setting sail on the Griffin. They lost a total of four children in early childhood, one of whom was born in America.^1,5 Anne Marbury died in August 1643 at Eastchester, New York; The site of Anne's house and the scene of her murder is in what is now Pelham Bay Park, within the limits of New York City, less than a dozen miles from the City Hall. Not far from it, beside the road, is a large glacial boulder, popularly called Split Rock. In 1911, a bronze tablet to the memory of Mrs. Hutchinson was placed on Split Rock by the Society of Colonial Dames of the State of New York, who recognized that the resting place of this most noted woman of her time was well worthy of such a memorial. Interestingly, in 1987, Governor Dukakis of Massachusetts pardoned Anne Hutchinson, in order to revoke the order of banishment by Governor Endicott, 350 years earlier.^5,2
     Anne developed an interest in religion and theology at a very young age, probably due to her father's interests. It seemed she inherited her father's ideals and assertiveness, and wasn't afraid of questioning the principles of faith and the authority of the Church, as she would demonstrate in her later years.⁵ A trusted midwife, housewife, and mother, Hutchinson started a weekly women's group that met in her home and discussed the previous Sunday's sermons. In time, Hutchinson began to share her divergent theological opinions, stressing personal intuition over ritual beliefs and practices.
In November 1637, Hutchinson was put on trial before the Massachusetts Bay General Court, presided over by Winthrop, on charges of heresy and "traducing the ministers." Winthrop described her described her as "an American Jezebel, who had gone a-whoring from God" and claimed the meetings were "a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God, nor fitting for your sex."
Following her civil trial, she was placed under house arrest and detained at the house of Joseph Weld, two miles from her home.
Hutchinson was called to trial on Thursday, 15 March 1638, weary and in poor health following a four-month detention. The trial took place at her home church in Boston, though many of her supporters were gone. Her husband and other friends had already left the colony to prepare a new place to live. Hutchinson was now banished from the colony and removed from the congregation, and her leading supporters had been given three months to leave the colony.
Hutchinson, her children, and others accompanying her travelled for more than six days by foot in the April snow to get from Boston to Roger Williams' settlement at Providence. They took boats to get to Aquidneck Island, where many men had gone ahead of them to begin constructing houses. In the second week of April, she reunited with her husband, from whom she had been separated for nearly six months.
During her trial, which she walked to while being five months pregnant, Hutchinson answered the accusations with learning and composure, but provocatively chose to assert her personal closeness with God. She claimed that God gave her direct personal revelations, a statement unusual enough at the time to make even John Cotton, her longtime supporter, question her soundness.
Hutchinson remained combative during the trial. "Therefore, take heed," she warned her interrogators. "For I know that for this that you goe about to doe unto me. God will ruin you and your posterity, and this whole State." Winthrop claimed that "the revelation she brings forth is delusion," and the court accordingly voted to banish her from the colony "as being a woman not fit for our society."
Hutchinson was help under house arrest until a church trial in March 1638. Her former mentor John Cotton now cautioned her sons and sons-in-law against "hindering" the work of God by speaking on her behalf, telling the women of the congregation to be careful, "for you see she is but a woman and many unsound and dangerous Principles are held by her" and attacking her meetings as a "promiscuous and filthie coming together of men and women without Distinction of Relation of Marriage." Then Reverend Wilson delivered her excommunication. "I doe cast you out and in the name of Christ I doe deliver you up to Satan, that you may learne no more to blaspheme, to seduce, and to lye."
"The Lord judgeth not as man judgeth," she retorted. "Better to be cast out of the church than to deny Christ."
Hutchinson went into labour in May 1638, following the stress of her trial, her imprisonment all winter, and the difficult trip to Aquidneck Island. She delivered what her doctor John Clarke described as a handful of transparent grapes. This is known now as a hydatidiform mole, a condition occurring most often in women over 45, resulting from one or two sperm cells fertilising a blighted egg. Hutchinson had been ill most of the winter, with unusual weakness, throbbing headaches, and bouts of vomiting. Most writers on the subject agree that she had been pregnant during her trial. Historian Emery Battis, citing expert opinion, suggests that she may not have been pregnant at all during that time, but displaying acute symptoms of menopause. The following April after reuniting with her husband, she became pregnant, only to miscarry the hydatidiform mole. A woman could have suffered severe menopausal symptoms who had undergone a continuous cycle of pregnancies, deliveries, and lactations for 25 years, with the burdens of raising a large family and subjected to the extreme stress of her trials.
The Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony gloated over Hutchinson's suffering and also that of Mary Dyer, a follower who suffered the premature and stillbirth of a severely deformed infant. The leaders classified the women's misfortunes as the judgement of God.Gov. Winthrop wrote, "She brought forth not one, but thirty monstrous births or thereabouts", then continued, "see how the wisdom of God fitted this judgment to her sin every way, for look—as she had vented misshapen opinions, so she must bring forth deformed monsters.
Hutchinson's husband William died some time after June 1641 at the age of 55, the same age at which Anne's father had died.
Mass Bay Colony was making serious threats to take over the settlement of Aquidneck Island, so Anne removed to the settlement of New Netherland after the summer of 1642 with seven of her children, a son-in-law, and several servants—16 total persons by several accounts. There they settled near an ancient landmark called Split Rock, not far from what became the Hutchinson River in northern Bronx, New York City.
The natives gave overt clues that they were displeased with the settlement being formed there.
The Siwanoy warriors stampeded into the tiny settlement above Pelham Bay, prepared to burn down every house. The Siwanoy chief, Wampage, who had sent a warning, expected to find no settlers present. But at one house the men in animal skins encountered several children, young men and women, and a woman past middle age. One Siwanoy indicated that the Hutchinsons should restrain the family's dogs. Without apparent fear, one of the family tied up the dogs. As quickly as possible, the Siwanoy seized and scalped Francis Hutchinson, William Collins, several servants, the two Annes (mother and daughter), and the younger children—William, Katherine, Mary, and Zuriel. As the story was later recounted in Boston, one of the Hutchinson's daughters, "seeking to escape," was caught "as she was getting over a hedge, and they drew her back again by the hair of the head to the stump of a tree, and there cut off her head with a hatchet."
The warriors then dragged the bodies into the house, along with the cattle, and burned the house to the ground. During the attack, Hutchinson's nine year-old daughter Susanna was out picking blueberries; she was found, according to legend, hidden in the crevice of Split Rock nearby. She is believed to have had red hair, which was unusual to the Indians, and perhaps because of this curiosity her life was spared. She was taken captive, was named "Autumn Leaf" by one account, and lived with the Indians for two to six years (accounts vary) until ransomed back to her family members, most of whom were living in Boston.⁵