Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great ReformersHubbard, Elbert
History
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers
Hubbard, Elbert
Reformers
Mrs. Hutchinson was found guilty and expelled from the church. She was
then again tried by the General Court, wherein all of her judges in
the Ecclesiastic Court also sat. After a long, laborious and insulting
trial, with no one but herself to raise a voice in her defense, pitted
against the eight clergymen, she ably defended her cause and actually
put them all to rout--an unforgivable thing, and an error in judgment
on her part.
There is much literature surrounding the case, and one of the
ministers, Thomas Welde, wrote a pamphlet explaining his part in it,
quite forgetful of the fact that explanations never explain. The more
one reads of Welde, the greater is his admiration for Mrs. Hutchinson.
Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts, the great-grandson of Anne
Hutchinson, edited the journal of Winthrop, and gives a remarkably
unprejudiced account of the sufferings of his great maternal ancestor.
Being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Mrs. Hutchinson
found refuge in Rhode Island, where she was welcomed by Roger
Williams, the first person, I believe, who lifted up his voice for
free speech in America. Mrs. Hutchinson was followed by her own family
and eighteen persons from Boston who sympathized with her. Included in
the party was Mary Dyer.
At Providence, Mrs. Hutchinson drew around her a goodly number of
people, including Quakers and Baptists, who listened to her discourses
with interest.
The ministers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony evidently felt that they
had made a mistake, for they got together and delegated three of their
number to go down to Providence and acquaint the renegades with the
news that if they would recant all belief in a Covenant of Grace, they
could return. Mrs. Hutchinson met the delegates with dignity and
kindness. The conference lasted for two days, and the committee
returned reporting the matter hopeless.
There were several desertions from Boston by those who sympathized
with Mrs. Hutchinson, and some of those people Mrs. Hutchinson
prevailed upon to go back. There were threats that the Massachusetts
people were coming down to capture them all by force. This so preyed
upon the Hutchinsons, who had suffered severely, that they packed
their now scanty goods upon a raft, and with improvised sails headed
for the Dutch settlement of Manhattan.
They were kindly received and given title to a tract of land on Long
Island, near Hell Gate. There, in a little clearing, on the water's
edge, they began to build a house. Ere the roof was on they were
attacked by Indians, who evidently mistook them for Dutch, and all
were massacred.
So died Anne Hutchinson.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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