Hutchinson, ANNE

Hutchinson, ANNE, a religious enthusiast, was the daughter of a Lincolnshire clergyman called Marbury. Born in 1590, she married a Mr Hutchinson, and in 1634 they emigrated from Lincolnshire, England, to Boston, Massachusetts. She held various theological heresies; amongst others, that the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in justified persons. She held meetings, lectured, and denounced the Massachusetts clergy as being with few exceptions 'under the covenant of works, not of grace.' Her followers were charged with Antinomianism (q.v.). Great controversies arose, and a synod was called, in which her teachings were condemned; and being tried for heresy and sedition, she was banished from the colony. She and her friends acquired territory from the Narragansett Indians of Rhode Island, where they set up a community on the highly commendable principle that no one was to be 'accounted a delinquent for doctrine.' After the death of her husband (who shared her opinions) she removed to a new settlement in what is now New York state, where, in 1643, she and her whole family of fifteen persons were taken prisoners by the Indians, and all but one daughter barbarously murdered.