“She was a woman of haughty and fierce carriage, a nimble wit and active spirit, a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man,” said Governor John Winthrop of religious pioneer Anne Hutchinson, whom he expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638 for her insistence on practicing religion as she chose, and on preaching herself.

An émigré from England who settled in the New World in 1634, Anne Hutchinson came under fire from the colony elders when she began expounding her theology at meetings in her home. She believed in a “covenant of grace,” in which faith alone was enough to achieve salvation. Others disagreed, and when Winthrop became governor, Hutchinson was banished and excommunicated. She moved with her family to the area of the country that became Rhode Island, and after her husband’s death, she moved to Long Island, where in 1643 she and five of her six children were killed in an Indian attack. This advocate of freedom of religion, the right to free assembly and women’s rights was honored in the naming of the Hutchinson River and the Hutchinson River Parkway.

Additional Resources:Lang, Amy Schrager, Prophetic woman: Anne Hutchinson and the problem of dissent in the literature of New England. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1987. NOTES: Includes index. Bibliography: p. 217-231.

Edited and with and introdution by: David D. Hall. The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: a documentary history. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990. NOTES: Includes bibliographical references (p. 441-447) and index.

Ilgenfritz, Elizabeth. Anne Hutchinson. New York: Chelsea House, 1991.

Williams, Selma R. Divine Rebel: The Life of Ann Marbury Hutchinson.New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981.

Leonardo, Bianca A. and Winnifred K. Rugg. Anne Hutchinson: Unsung Heroine of History. Tree of Life Publishing, 1996.

Withrop, John. Winthrop's Journal, History of New England: 1630-1649. Edited by: James Kendall Hosmer. New York: Banes and Noble, 1959. NOTES: Winthrop was an enemy of Hutchinson.

The Letter Book of Abner Cheney Goodell (1831-1914) from 1859-1862, 1 volume. Includes material on Anne Hutchinson. Peabody Essex Museum, Phillips Library. Salem, Massachusetts.