I had pretty much given up on the male side of Dad’s line and started to look into the maternal lines. My sixth great grandmother, Sarah Dryer, lead me to her father, William Dryer and to his mother, Anne Hutchinson. Anne Hutchinson was a name I recognized from my reading early New England religious history – could this Anne be a relative of “the Anne Hutchinson” of Boston and Long Island?
My Anne was easily linked to her father Edward who was the son of William Hutchinson and Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson, the one in the history books.
William and Anne left England for Massachusetts to follow their son and Anne’s Puritan minister John Cotton, who had been at odds with the Anglican church. Anne began to minister to her ladies group, soon even some of the Boston men folks began to join her flock. Eventually she fell out of accord with the established church and was preaching it was OK to make a profit on one’s business and labor. Fearing that Antinonioans (including Anne) would cause social chaos, allowing individual conscience to replace clerical and civil authority as the standard for public conduct, the majority “orthodox” Puritans elected John Winthrop governor. Those who followed the Antinonian way were denied government office, lost favor in the courts, and were banished from the colony.
Anne appeared in court to defend herself, however she also declared herself the recipient of direct revelations from God. This direct communion with God was felt to be the vilest heresy and her doom was sealed. She was banished as a woman “not fit for society”. Shortly thereafter she and the family moved to Rhode Island where she freely continued her ministry. Upon the death of William she, along with her six younger children, moved to Long Island, eventually to the New Netherland (New York) mainland, where, in the summer of 1643, she and all but one of her children were killed in an Indian attack.
The creed of Anne Hutchinson finds it’s presence in the evolution of the Protestant church in America, emphasizing the ability to follow the dictates of one’s own conscience in matters of belief.
A life sized statue of Anne and her daughter Savannah (who survived the Indian attack) is in Boston, in front of the state house. The principles of Antinonian belief were adapted to the Portsmouth Compact of 1638. This compact is generally regarded as the earliest form of government to allow and insure civil and religious freedom. Anne’s son Edward was a signer of the Compact.
Anne and William’s descendants include a long list of prominent Americans: Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, George H.W. and George W. Bush, Presidential aspirants Steven A. Douglas, George W. Romney and Mitt Romney; early governors, supreme court justices, university presidents, and her great great grandson, Thomas Hutchinson was the loyalist governor of Massachusetts at the time of the Boston Tea party.
In 1914 John Champlin published Anne’s ancestry, showing her descent on her father’s side from Charlemagne and Alfred the Great. Her mother’s side descends from Henry II of England and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine.
