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Show An IEarfugi Aft EarfyMfl WiixlKvop ' Mm iPi Mih 'K lit Iff! Lv- III H Sf 11$? i M y I All plcr from Augni'i -A- Am- M Pf V 1 j By ELMO SCOTT WATSON TO M M 11 '"1H18 average achool history TpyiPwJk R5 Iffiffl W$m JoKfl PS? gives her only a brief para- fMP Mi 1 B ffl Kl JOnn- . , fraph and the chances fgf $ If g 1 Cotton, are that not one American AssSSSS,!,. in ten could tell you who PSSSiysrt ;i she was or when she lived 41! ' or what was her Importance g3a3'Jfr?NV& In history. Wherefore It ' ,U J Is all the more remarkable j4rUie HutcKilVSOtV Statu.e, 7 that within recent weeks thero have appeared no less than Bostot. I All plcturea from Ansni'i "An American Amer-ican Jeaebel," Courteay Brenlttno'lt j By ELMO SCOTT WATSON fX ii ' Ml H averfl8e scnol history f T gives her only a brief paragraph para-graph and the chances ; are that not one American In ten could tell you who she was or when she lived ' or what was her Importance In history. Wherefore It LV -r Is all the more remarkable 7 that within recent weeks thero have appeared no less than three new books, all dealing with the life of Anne Hutchinson. Who and .what she was Is suggested by the titles of two of them "Unafraid a Life of Anne Hutchinson," written by Wlnnlfred King Rugg and published by the Houghton Mifflin company, and "An American Jezebel The life of Anrte Hltchlnuon," which was written by Helen Augur and published by Bren-tano'g. Bren-tano'g. Vhereshe lived and the pride of a New' York county In the fact that shsy-bnce dwelt there, even though Massachusetts claimed a great-tajyiKtiiif great-tajyiKtiiif Vwreer Is Indicated by .the fact that the Yy"estehester County Hlstorlcal society, In Issuing Volume VII of Its publications, chose Otto Hufeland's account of "Anne Hutehln-on's Hutehln-on's Refuge In the Wilderness" as the leading article for that volume to which it gave the title of "Anne Hutchinson and Other Papers." Who was Anne Hutchinson? Let Wlnnlfred King Rugg In the Introduction Intro-duction to her book "Unafraid" an-awer an-awer that question in these words: Anne Hutchinson has been called by many names. All the way from "the New England Jezebel" Jeze-bel" to "a Prototype of Joan of Arc" run the epithets whole-heartedly applied by enemies or friends. In between He such labels as "that proud dame, that Athallah," "a notorious Iniposter," "a daynger-ong daynger-ong Instrument of the Devell raysed up by Sathan," "a Breeder of Heresies," "a persuasive advocate advo-cate of the right of Individual Judgment," "a she-Gamaliel," "a dear saint servant and of God." l (That last Is her husband speak- ing. Poor man, he suffered more on her account than any one else 1) aor Anne Hutchinson's place in Vhis same biographer also well In these words: Jnv& Hutchinson stood for jfVnT reason for examining history. She was one of the riv feminists of her day. She founded what was In essence the first woman's club in America. The meetings held In her house, though primarily for religious Instruction, In-struction, were the forerunners of hundreds of thousands of meet- ings since her day, wherever women wom-en convene to Improve themselves or the rest of the world. The Hutchinson house, which stood at what Is now the northerly corner of Washington and School streets, Boston, was the birthplace of the women's clubs of America. Anne Hutchinson's character be-(omes be-(omes more understandable when one eonslders her parentage. She was the daughter of Francis Marbury, a minister min-ister of Northampton, England, who had braved the wrath of his bishop for the sake of his belief in "the reformation of our church in Discipline BDd Ceremonies," had been branded "an overthwart, proud, Puritan knave" by that dignitary and had twice been put In Jail. Her mother was a Dry-. Dry-. den, a relative of the poet, Dryden, ks4ho:In his later years, though, became Ante from the Puritan beliefs of s? turbulence of her f' rr he first 40 years of ."Vson's llfg were strnnge-Kno. strnnge-Kno. Her childhood was Alford and London In a heavy jiinosy!iere that never lifted. h the age of twenty-one, she fled to William Hutchinson, farted mercer, who from the beginning was dominated by his strong-minded wife. During the first 22 years of their married life she bore him 14 children and during those years the energy which later was to be spent mainly in religions controversy contro-versy was fully occupied with household house-hold cares and the upbringing of her family. But during that time she traveled repeatedly to the neighboring town of old Boston to hear Rev. John Cotton preach in St Botolph's church. Cotton became a sort of an ideal of hers and when he was forced to leave England because of his nonconformist non-conformist views and emigrate to America, Anne decided to follow. What William Hutchinson thought of this uprooting of his home and family It not recorded, but he had probably long since learned not to oppose his wife's decisions. So In 1634 to the new Boston In Massachusetts Bay colony, a raw little town of less than a thousand inhabitants living In rude one-room log cabins and fragile frame houses, on the edge of the wilderness, came the Hutchlnsons. Within a few months Anne became the "social leader lead-er and Lady Bountiful" of the settlement. settle-ment. She was a constant companion of John Cotton, who basked In her admiration for him ; she became a close friend of the governor, Sir Henry Vane, the younger, and she became be-came a recognized leader in the religious re-ligious discussions which occupied so much of the olony's attention. In fact It was these discussions which brought about her downfall. The heart of the Puritan religion was a belief that God's Word was In the Scriptures. The cardinal sin against such a religion was the belief that God's inspiration could be transmitted trans-mitted directly to hnman beings. So when there arose In the colony a fac-tlon,'called fac-tlon,'called "Antlnomlans" (people not living by the letter of the law of God, and believing that God revealed his laws directly to them), when this faction fac-tion grew under the leadership of Anne Hutchinson, when meetings were held in her home to discuss and criticize crit-icize the sermons of the Puritan ministers min-isters and when they asserted that most of the Boston ministers were under un-der a "covenant of works" and were trying to be saved by religious observances. ob-servances. It was only a matter of time until Anne should find herself in trouble. The climax came in 1637. Wlnthrop and the other Puritan leaders had fled from England to escape religious Intolerance, In-tolerance, but, as so often happens, those who suffer from intolerance are the first to become intolerant. So they put Anne on trial for heresy, a trial that has been compared to that of Joan of Arc at Rouen. Under the cross-questioning and testimony brought against her, she proved herself her-self more than a match for her prosecutors. prose-cutors. But just at the moment when It seemed that she had defeated her accusers, she burst forth Into a long speech describing God's revelations to her. So she convicted herself. She was banished from the colony and went to Rhode Island to make her home. Left a widow in 1G 12, she sot forth with her children again in search of a new home. First she settled on Long Island and then in what isow Westchester West-chester county, N. Y. Here her turbulent tur-bulent career came to a tragic end. She arrived In the Dutch colony at a time when the Indians, infurluted by Dutch deception and greed, were engaged en-gaged in periodic attacks on the whites. It was in one of those attacks at-tacks that Anne Hutchinson, with all of her children but one and several of her neighbors, sixteen persons in all," were killed. Helen Augur in her biography of Anne tells a dramatic story of tha events of that dreadful day : In September, 1643, Anne Hutchinson Hutch-inson stood In her doorway looking look-ing at the fields of corn, tawny In the morning sunshine. She was thinking of what one of her neighbors neigh-bors had said the day before "When the corn is ripe and harvested, har-vested, the Indians will break their truce." As she stood there, a group of Mohegans padded softly up. They exchanged friendly greetings, and then the Indians walked through the house and grounds, as If looking to see if there were any strange men about. But everything was quite as usual ; William Collins and Francis Fran-cis were at work In the field, and the children were at little tasks about the field and garden. The Indians nodded farewell, and went away. In the afternoon they came back, only this time there were more of (thera, and there were strange faces among them ; Anne Hutchinson Hutchin-son wondered why they had put on so much demenic paint. Perhaps Per-haps they were off on some strange Indian ceremony, for they seemed excited. The dogs began te bark at the strange apparition, and the Mohegans asked to have them tied up, for they were afraid they would bite. The dogs were tied up. Uncas' men whipped out their tomahawks. Anne Hutchinson saw four demons rush at her sons. Bread of adversity, water of affliction af-fliction she had lived out that promise, but God never warned her of this horror. William Collins Col-lins and Francis were struck down, their skulls crushed and bleeding. Anne Collins fell beside her husband. hus-band. Mrs. Hutchinson caught Susanna to her breast to shut out the sight from the screaming child. Katherine was half over a fence, but a Mohegan caught her by the hair and dragged her back to a stump. Anne Hutchinson heard the sickening blow ; she saw Mary and little William rush sobbing sob-bing to her, as if she could save them. Then two Indians were upon her, and the child was torn from her breast. A tomahawk fell. Anne Hutchinson was dead. And for a final epitaph of hM "American Jezebel," Helen Aughl writes : Boston has finally made up its quarrel with the woman it cast out as "unsavoury salt." Her monument mon-ument stands before the Massachusetts Massa-chusetts statehouse, with a fervent fer-vent inscription to this "Courageous "Courage-ous Exponent of Civil Liberty and Religious Toleration." There she stands, with a Bible in her hand, and a child snuggled against her. New England's heroine. For civil liberty and religious toleration the principles for which she suf fered exile and death, are writtei. into the Constitution o the United States. |