Show E 7 if 0 ICU A iino vana kv fl Z V IS am AU all pictures from adcur As AB amer aloer goa I 1 Jes jesiel bel courtesy brentano Brent Bren by ELMO SCOTT WATSON HE average school history gives her only a brief paragraph and the chances are that not one american la in ten could tell you who the she was or when she lived or what was her ber importance in history wherefore it Is all the more remarkable 1 1 that within recent weeks there have appeared no less than three new books all dealing with the life of anne hutchinson who and what the she was is 18 suggested by the titles title of two of them unafraid a life of anne hutchinson written by winnifred king rugg and published by the houghton in company and an american jezebel the life of anne aitchinson Hit chinson which was written by helen augur and published by bren tanos where she lived and the pride of a new york county in the fact that she once dwelt there even though massachusetts claimed a greater part of her career Is indicated by the tha fact that the westchester county historical society in issuing volume VII of its publications chose otto Bufe lands account of anne hutchin sons oni refuge in the wilderness as the th leading article for that volume to which it gave the title of anne hutchinson and other papers who was anne hutchinson let winnifred king rugg in the introduction to her book unafraid anwer that question in these words anne hutchinson has been called by many names all the way from the new england jezebel to a prototype of joan of are arc run the epithets whole beart edly applied by enemies or friends in between lie such labels as that proud dame that athaleah At hallah a notorious impostor imposter a dangerous ou instrument of the devell rayed up by bathan a breeder of ef heresies Her esies a persuasive advocate of the right of individual judgment a she a dear saint servant and of god that last Is 1 her husband speaking poor man main he suffered buffered more cia 0 her account than any one else 1 As for anne Hutchin sons place in Id history atory this same biographer also urns sums it up well in these words what anne n stood for la is another reason for examining list her history she was wag one of the few feminists of her day she founded what was in essence the first womans comans club in america the meetings held in her house though primarily for religious in st ruction were the forerunners of hundreds of thousands of meetings since her day wherever women convene to improve themselves orthe rest of the world the hutchinson house bouie which stood at what Is now the northerly corner comer of washington and school streets boston was wa the birthplace of the me clubs of america anne Hutchin sons character becomes more understandable when one considers her parentage e she was the daughter of francis marbury arbury ll a minister of northampton england who had bad braved the wrath of his bis bishop for the sake asahe of his belief in the reformation of oure our church burch in discipline end and ceremonies had been branded an proud puritan knave by that dignitary and had bad twice been put in jail her mother was a dryden a relative of the poet dryden who in his later years though became apostate from the puritan beliefs of cf his bis family considering the turbulence of her last lart few years the first 48 46 years of anne Hutchin sons life were strangely quiet ones her childhood was spent in alford and london in a heavy religious atmosphere that never lifted in 1612 at the age of twenty one she was married to william hutchinson good hearted marcer who from the johm cottom anne Hutchin som statue B 0 S 0 r beginning was wag dominated by his strong minded wife during the first 22 years of their married ried life she bore him 14 children and during those years the energy which later was to be spent mainly in religious controversy was fully occupied with household cares and the upbringing of her family but during that time she traveled repeatedly to the neighboring town of old boston to hear bear rev john cotton preach in st SL botolphs church cotton became a sort of an ideal of hers bers and when he was forced to leave england because of his nonconformist 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 be had bad probably long since learned not to oppose his bis cifes 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 mile one room log cabins and fragile frame houses on the edge of the wilderness came the Hutchin sons within a few months anne anna became the social leader bad and lady bountiful of the settlement 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 mia dha became a recognized leader in the religious discussions which occupied so 0 much of the colons col onys attention in tact fact it was those these discussions which brought about her downfall the heart of the puritan rell religion glon was a belief that gods word was in the scriptures the cardinal sin against such euch a religion was the belief that gods goda lin inspiration ion could be transmitted directly to human beings so when there arose in the colony a fac tion called antinomians people not living by the letter of the law of god and believing that god revealed ills his laws directly to them when this faction grew under the leadership of anne hutchinson when uben meetings were held in her home to discuss and crit the sermons of the puritan ministers and when they asserted that most of the boston ministers were under a covenant of works and were trying to be saved hy by religious observances ser vances it was only a matter of time until anne should find herself la in trouble the climax came in 1037 1637 winthrop and the other puritan leaders had bad led fled from england to escape religious intolerance but as so often happens those who suffer from intolerance are the first to become intolerant so they put anne on trial for heresy 1 a trial that has hag been compared to that of joan of arc at rouen ronen under the cross questioning and testimony brought against her she proved herself more than a match for her prosecutors but just at the moment when it teemed seemed that she had defeated her accusers she burst forth into a long speech describing gods revelations to her so she convicted herself she was banished from the colony and went to khoda island to make her home borne lett left a widow in 1842 1612 16 12 she set get forth with her children again in search of a new home first she settled on long island and then in what Is now westchester county N T here hera her ber turbulent career came to a tragic end she arrived in the dutch colony at a time when the indians infuriated by dutch deception and greed were engaged in periodic attacks on the whites it was in one of those attacks that anne hutchinson with all of her children but one and several ot of her neighbors sixteen persons in all were killed billed helen augur in her biography of anne te tells a a dramatic story of the events of that dreadful day in september 1643 1613 anne hutchinson stood in her doorway looking at the fields of corn tawny in the morning sunshine she was thinking of what one of her neighbors had bad said the day before when the corn Is ripe and harvested the indians will break their truce As slie she stood there a group of Moli egans padded softly up they exchanged friendly greetings and then the indians walked through the house and grounds as if looking to see it there were any strange men about but everything was quite as usual william colllns collins and francis were at work in the field and the children biere were at little tasks about the held field and garden the indians nodded farewell and went away la in the afternoon they came back only this time there were ere more oj of them and there were strange faces among them anne hutchin son wondered why they had put on so BO much demonic paint per ier hope they were off on some gome strange indian ceremony tor for they seemed excited the dogs began to bark at the strange apparition and the Moh Mob egans asked to have them tied up for they were afraid they would bite the dogs were tied up uncas men whipped hipped out their toma tomahawks havi ks anne hutchinson saw tour four demons rush at her sons bread of adversity water of affliction slie she had lived out that promise but god never warned her of this horror william collins colling ling and francis were struck down their skulls crushed and bleeding anne colllns collins fell beside her he r husband mrs hutchinson caught susanna to her breast to shut out the sight from the screaming child katherine Kather lne 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 to her as if slie she could save them then two indians indiana were upon her and the child was torn from her breast A tomahawk fell anne hutchinson wm dead and for a final epitaph of her american jezebel helen augur writes boston has finally made up its quarrel with the woman it cast out as un savoury salt her monument stands before the massachusetts chu statehouse with a fer vent inscription to this courageous exponent of civil liberty and religious toleration there she stands with a bible in her hand and a child waggled against her new En glands heroine for civil liberty and religious toleration the principles tor for which she suf of exile and death are written into the constitution of the unite states |