A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Hutchinson, Anne
HUTCHINSON, ANNE
A woman who caused much difficulty in New England soon after its settlement, went from Lincolnshire to Boston in 1635, and was the wife of one of the representatives of Boston. The members of Mr. Cotton's church used to meet every week to repeat his sermons and discourse on doctrines. She established similar meetings for women, and soon had a numerous audience. She advocated sentiments of her own, and warped the discourses of the clergymen to coincide with them. She soon threw the whole colony into a flame. The progress of her sentiments occasioned, in 1637, the first synod in America. This convention of ministers condemned eighty-two erroneous opinions then propagated in the country. Mrs. Hutchinson was called before the court in November, 1637; and, being convicted of traducing the ministers and advancing errors, was banished from Massachusetts. She went with her husband to Rhode Island; and in 1642, after her husband's death, removed into the Dutch colony beyond New Haven, where she, with most of her family, consisting of sixteen persons, were captured, and all, except one daughter, killed by the Indians. This occurred in 1643.