reed-2014

School of Arts and Humanities
History and Military History
The thesis for the master's degree submitted by
Tracey Reed
under the title
Anne Hutchinson: A Midwife’s Challenge
has been read by the undersigned. It is hereby recommended
for acceptance by the faculty with credit to the amount of
3 semester hours.
(Signed, first reader) (Date) April 26, 2014
(Signed, second reader, if required) _______________________ (Date) _____________
Recommended for approval on behalf of the program
(Date) April 28, 2014
Recommendation accepted on behalf of the program director
(Signed) ________ (Date) 4-28-2014
Approved by academic dean

AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
Charles Town, West Virginia
ANNE HUTCHINSON: A MIDWIFE’S CHALLENGE
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
AMERICAN HISTORY
by
Tracey Reed
Department Approval Date: April 28, 2014

ii
The author hereby grants the American Public University System the right to display these
contents for educational purposes.
The author assumes total responsibility for meeting the requirements set by United States
copyright law for the inclusion of any materials that are not the author’s creation or in the public
domain.
© Copyright 2014 by Tracey Reed
All rights reserved.

iii
DEDICATION
I dedicate this thesis to my son Michael and daughter Heather whose love is one of the
driving forces in my will to succeed; my grateful thanks is abundantly scattered between them. I
also dedicate this to my parents the late Donald and Martha Wright for all those visits to old
cemeteries and National Parks. My deepest appreciation goes to the faculty of the History
Department at American Military University who taught me not only how to research history,
but to truly love history.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to my husband Steven Reed who was my greatest champion through the
long nights and endless book piles in our home as I concluded my studies. I wish to thank my
late uncle the Reverend Gerald G. Wright and his wife Eileen Wright of Oxford, England whose
words of encouragement inspired me to get an education no matter how long it took. Gerald’s
words: “Tracey, the world only cares that you are educated, not how many years it takes you to
get it.” A truer statement could not be spoken. Much appreciation goes to Dr. Lisa Carswell who
pushed me and encouraged me tremendously; a mentor and a friend who was always there before
I even knew I needed her. Finally, Dr. John Drozd for his helpful guidance and editing of my
many drafts; no matter how busy he was with his medical practice.

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ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS
ANNE HUTCHINSON: A MIDWIFE’S CHALLENGE
by
Tracey Reed
American Public University System, April 28, 2014
Charles Town, West Virginia
Professor Brett Woods, Thesis Professor
The following is a study of Anne Hutchinson’s emergence from midwife to prophetess
and heretic in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. An examination of Hutchinson as the most
conspicuous woman of her time in Colonial America is the story of a midwife who created the
first women’s reading club in her colony. Existing historiography contains ample evidence to
support the contention that her role as midwife and healer impacted the results of both her civil
and ecclesiastical trials. The authorities in the colony were frightened by midwives because there
was a strong connection between what the colonial fathers called “the community of women.”
The background of Hutchinson and her religious beliefs will be examined in context with the
Antinomian Controversy. Hutchinson’s and other Colonial women’s midwifery skills are
explored and tie into the followership founded with the women taught in her home. Her trial and
life will be reviewed and analyzed against the background of Puritan New England through the
writings of the magistrates and clergy. The definition of her life as midwife will show the impact
of this role in her sentencing for teaching heresy and later excommunication from the church.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...1
I. PURITAN MIDWIFE ANNE HUTCHINSON FORMS THE FIRST WOMEN’S BOOK
CLUB IN COLONIAL AMERICA……………………………………………………...12
II. THE MIDWIFE STANDS TRIAL…................................................................................36
III. THE CHURCH SPEAKS FOR ITSELF………………………………………………...52
IV. MRS. HUTCHINSON MAKES HISTORY FOR THE RIGHT REASONS…………....65
CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………..72
APPENDIX………………………………………………………………………………79
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………..94

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Introduction
In front of the State House in Boston is a memorial to Anne Hutchinson created by Cyrus
E. Dallin.1 Her statue portrays her head held high and proud with one hand holding a Bible, and
the other resting on the shoulder of her young daughter.2 The irony of history is that her statue
occupies a place of honor in front of the present meeting place of the General Court of
Massachusetts which cast her out of their jurisdiction so many years before.
Cyrus Edwin Dallin, Anne Hutchinson, 1915, Massachusetts State House,on south lawn near Beacon and Bow
streets,Boston,accessed April 1, 2014, http://www.publicartaroundtheworld.com/Anne_Hutchinson_Statue.html.
1 Amy Schrager Lang, Prophetic Woman: Anne Hutchinson and the Problem of Dissent
in the Literature of New England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 215.
2 Emery John Battis, Saints and Sectaries: Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian
Controversy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press, 1962), 247.

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On November 2, 1637 she had stood before the court as an ordinary-looking woman of
forty-six. She was the sum of many parts to include wife, mother of twelve children, active
member of the Congregationalist Church, and a midwife.3 The issues which brought her before
the court were complicated but she represented a convergence of circumstances and problems for
which the colony and its inhabitants were not properly prepared to face. The end result would be
a clash of Hutchinson’s will against those of the colony’s magistrates and clergy. She and her
followers would later give birth to a whole new settlement in Rhode Island and Hutchinson
would take her place in history as one of America’s founding mothers.
Why was Anne Hutchinson excommunicated from church and banished from the
Massachusetts Bay Colony for her interpretation and teaching of the Bible? Why were the
authorities so frightened by midwives, and what was the connection between midwifery and
what the magistrates called “the community of women . . . their abominable wickedness?”4
While this was not the first trial regarding dissension among the Puritans it revealed overlapping
tensions regarding female conduct and how the magistrates of the colony dealt with these
tensions with regard to midwifery. The clergy were unaccustomed to debating with a woman
and appear nonplussed in trial transcripts to have such a challenge to their authority. Therefore
the very order of nature in the Puritan society was turned upside down, for no one expected a
challenge from a mere woman whose occupation was that of a midwife.
The central thesis of this work will focus on an examination of Hutchinson’s life as a
midwife within New England’s Puritan culture where she formed the first women’s reading
3 Michael P. Winship, The Times and Trials of Anne Hutchinson (Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 2005), 103.
4 Battis, 239.

3
group; their book was the Bible. In a culture where childbirth and healing were largely exclusive
of men, it was in the birthing rooms of women that Hutchinson first began interpreting the
gospel. She stepped out of the social norms of healer and midwife to interpret the Scriptures to
women in the privacy of her own home. According to the mores of her time she then was put
swiftly and irrevocably back in her place by the court and church. No woman in Massachusetts
during this era would achieve fame so quickly nor fall so fast in just three years’ time.
With the modern trend in childbirth using midwives for home delivery, midwifery is
receiving more attention today. Colonial midwives had a history of being suspect for their
knowledge of herbal medicine and a strong woman like the educated Hutchinson was a threat to
the society of men in the colony. The extent and impact of Hutchinson’s behaviors as a midwife
who taught other women affected the magistrates who later assessed such harsh punishment over
her. This provides a strong connection to the overall treatment of midwives during this time.
Historians place her in the forefront of the Antinomian Controversy with many observations
including her only as the sole women among the men. There were many other women who
concurred with Hutchinson’s teachings but this midwife was tried in both civil court and the
church. Hutchinson was considered by all accounts an intelligent woman with a quick mind, wit
and tremendous self-possession for a woman who found herself the subject of heresy for
criticizing the sermons in the colony. On that cold November day as she stood before Governor
John Winthrop’s court in a Cambridge, Massachusetts meetinghouse she was considered a
menace as a woman who unduly influenced other women to neglect their families. She had been
summoned to appear and answer for the crime of heresy, and now faced a group of black robed
magistrates from the Massachusetts Bay Colony who had no sympathy for a midwife who
decided to preach.

4
An examination of Hutchinson’s revelations and prophecy that were passed on to others
while she was performing her midwife duties prove how a woman could so incense the males of
the colony that they would banish her to the wilderness. Interpretations of the controversy
surrounding her emphasize her first teachings while in the company of woman. My study will
examine the theory that through gossip with other women within the colony Hutchinson opened
theological issues to women who had not been allowed to speak before. She explained other
minister’s sermons and their meanings. Sharing with the women of prophecies and revelations
from the Scriptures enabled her to step outside her boundaries as midwife. Consequently, she
was punished for behavior not fitting her sex and what was expected of a midwife at this time.
Before Hutchinson began the behavior that would give her preeminence in the annals of
American religious dissenters she was known as the wife of William; an esteemed member of the
colony. She was well known as a healer and midwife with considerable skills at interpreting the
Bible. Her civil and church trials for contempt and doctrinal error were what made her a central
figure in the Antinomianism Controversy and the leader of the Hutchinsonian followers. But she
did not arrive there alone on the strength of her revelations. She inspired people to listen to her.
Though she later expanded her reading group to include many men she was charged by
Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop not only for questioning the church
minister’s preaching of a Covenant of Works but more important in Winthrop eyes for causing
women to neglect their families.5 Due to the lower status of women at the time, early influential
females left few correspondence, journals, or published works; unless provided within the
context of a more famous husband such as Abigail Adams. Among published works of females
5 Mark C. Carnes, Michael P. Winship, The Trial of Anne Hutchinson: Liberty, Law, and
Intolerance in Puritan New England, 2d ed. (New York: Pearson Longman, 2005), 67.

5
there are the brief “Valedictory and Monitory Writing” of Sarah Goodhue, the captivity
narratives of Mary Rowlandson and Elisabeth Hanson, and the poetry of Anne Bradstreet.
Hutchinson historians know her character primarily through the trial transcripts and documents
of her time in the colony of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The journals of Governor
Winthrop are crucial in establishing the timeline and general feelings of the colony toward
Hutchinson but they are obviously biased. Winthrop and others leant toward their suppressed
opinion that she was in concert with the Devil for her views; a feeling provoked largely by her
midwifery skills and failure to bear full term children while in her late forties.
Written documentation of the controversy and extensive historiography of her are easily
found, but must be examined and weighed carefully against the prejudices of midwives in
general. The documents of the Antinomian Controversy and her place in the historical context of
the controversy were carefully maintained in journals of governors, magistrates and clergy
during the 1630s. Oral history was transferred from the women to their men and Hutchinson
spoke among her elders of the church with like-minded ideas. But it is men who wrote
profoundly about her and it is clearly evident she was famous not only for her part in the charges
of Antinomianism, but because she was an educated midwife who annoyed her male elders.
The problem with the male-dominated documentation is that the eyewitness accounts
inevitably portray her as a troublemaker. The most distinguished men of Massachusetts were not
impartial observers. Nor did they know anything about the binding ties of women who faced
uncertain futures on the frontiers. Furthermore, they were completely ignorant of how much a
good midwife and healer provided for the physical, moral and spiritual health of a colonist’s
family. An examination of the trial proves that when the magistrates could not convince

6
Hutchinson to find fault with her teachings and doctrinal errors; they could always fall back on
the mysteries of her womanhood and her midwifery.
In addition, the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the 1630s was concerned with pleasing the
Crown in England, land expansion and its religious conduct. Within this context the colony
would be worried about developing their land, furthering peace with the Amerindians and the
religious doctrine for which they had initially left England to establish. Two of the qualities that
defined the colony were the community’s severe religiosity and its vulnerability. From both
within and without, the colony fought to maintain its freedom from England and its very
existence from the Amerindian foes on their shores. Therefore the colony was paranoid of any
divisions that might undermine its need for a united front.6 Hutchinson was a woman who dared
to question the foundations that kept the colony together and at one time her very presence was
considered dangerous by the governor and others to the peace and unity of the church. It was
important that any controversy within the colony’s church not reach England’s shores.
Massachusetts Bay was more settled than its outlying neighbors and with more time on their
hands; they seemed to find it necessary to meddle in church and religious affairs. Religion was a
huge driving force in the colony since most of its founders left England because of difficulties
with Anglican Church doctrine.
In examining the case of Hutchinson’s accusations and subsequent trials the literature
used is broken into two groups: primary materials which contain her trial transcripts and
firsthand accounts of the controversy, and secondary materials which provide the historiography
of Hutchinson’s trial during the New England Puritan culture. Information regarding
Hutchinson’s excommunication from the church and trial for heresy is derived from primary
6 Battis, 63.

7
sources. There are many easily accessible sets of primary sources on the Antinomian
Controversy, including David Hall, ed., The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A
Documentary History, 2d ed. (Durham, NC, 1990); Richard S. Dunn, James Savage, and Laetitia
Yeandle, eds., The Journal of John Winthrop (Cambridge, MA, 1996); and Sargent Bush Jr., ed.,
The Correspondence of John Cotton, 1621-1652 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2001). These books contain
major reexamination of the controversy and provide details of Hutchinson’s physical condition
during her trial. Historian David Hall studied her role in the controversy at length in his books
on the Antinomians and acknowledges that the controversy in Massachusetts started with her.
But his works are largely influenced by what the men of that time wrote about Antinomianism.
The Antinomians believed that one’s conduct in life was no test of divine entrance into
heaven, whether it was the wearing of plain clothes, sober speech or bearing. A Covenant of
Grace brought about by the spirit of God in one’s inner life could testify to a safe passage into
heaven. Hutchinson and others taught that holiness consisted in a state of heart and not always in
good works. She upheld a Covenant of Grace based on a direct revelation of God’s grace and
love which she claimed came to her as a prophecy through her reading of the scriptures. While
this did not discourage a decent life and observance of the Sabbath it did put all good works in a
subordinate place as the fruits of such labor, rather than the proof of a believing heart. This is
what Hutchinson believed and taught to the women of the colony.
Literature which contains responses to Antinomianism are extremely valuable in
researching the era in which Hutchinson shared her beliefs. Edward Johnson, Wonder-Working
Providence, 1628-1651 (London, 1654, New York, 1959); and William Hubbard’s, A General
History of New England (Boston, 1848) contain invaluable historical perspective. Another is
Cotton Mather, though not a contemporary of Hutchinson he published the Magnalia Christi

8
Americana (London, 1702; reprinted Hartford, 1853) which is a significant source of information
about the Antinomians.
A guide to the historiography of New England culture during the time of the Antinomian
controversy is contained in the lengthy and written account of Hutchinson and her trial by Emery
Battis in his Saints and Sectaries: Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian Controversy in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony (Chapel Hill, NC, 1962). Battis wrote the fullest account of the
controversy though parts are marred by an unsubstantiated interpretation of Hutchinson.
However, there is much valuable information if you ignore Battis’ idea that Hutchinson suffered
from menopause and a weak husband. Since Hutchinson’s trial has lengthy literature, Battis’
account is useful in breaking down the colony’s justice and punishment systems.
Historiography of Hutchinson’s life is also derived from excellent secondary sources.
The best interpretation is Michael P. Winship’s The Times and Trials of Anne Hutchinson
(Lawrence, Kansas, 2005) and Making Heretics: Militant Protestantism and Free Grace in
Massachusetts, 1636-1641 (Princeton, New Jersey, 3003). Both of Winship’s books provide
excellent views of Hutchinson as fluent in the topics of spiritualty and theology and recalls how
she successfully used these traits along with her association with Cotton to achieve status in New
England. In Making Heretics Winship provides a learned study of the controversy and the
Hutchinsonians place in the history of Antinomians. The Times and Trials contains the best
analysis of her trial which can be combined with the actual transcripts to confirm the religious
intolerance of her era. His concise retelling of her history provides the details necessary to
understand the woman and midwife she was. The figure of John Winthrop permeates
Hutchinson’s throughout her life in Massachusetts. Edmund S. Morgan provides the best

9
treatment of a general interpretation of Puritanism from Winthrop’s viewpoint in The Puritan
Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (Boston, 1958).
Marty Beth Norton, Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming
of American Society (New York: 2004) analyses the role gender assumptions played in both of
her trials. Some historians take Norton’s view the trial was a sham from the start. Did
Hutchinson simply talk too much out of turn and then in the excitement of her free grace feelings
go on to further explorations which led to harsher punishments? Ann Fairfax-Withington and
Jack Schwartz, “The Political Trial of Anne Hutchinson,” New England Quarterly 51 (1978) is a
noteworthy article which expands to cover midwife and gender assumptions. The assumption
about gender being a factor in Hutchinson’s trial is entwined with the assumptions about the
power of midwifery during this period. While gender assumption was explored during the early
feminist driven studies of 1970s and 1980s in the writing and research of Hutchinson’s life, the
subject of midwifery is not just a part of the gender question but stands alone as a larger aspect
of the suspicion Hutchinson was cast under in the colony. While important as extraneous
reading to the understanding of the era Hutchinson lived in, gender analysis is not the sole basis
for this thesis though it plays a part in understanding the midwife role.
Ben Barker Benfield, “Anne Hutchinson and the Puritan Attitude to Women,” Feminist
Studies 1 (1973); Lyle Koehler, “The Cast of the American Jezebels: Anne Hutchinson and
Female Agitation During the Years of the Antinomian Turmoil, 1636-1640,” William and Mary
Quarterly, 3d ser., (1974); and Amy Schrager Lang, Prophetic Woman: Anne Hutchinson and
the Problem of Dissent in New England Literature (Berkeley, 1987) have substantial sections
which provide accounts of Hutchinson’s actions during her time in Massachusetts. Research
from these books provide that Hutchinson was not always the central figure of the controversy

10
though she was outspoken. For example, the previous governor of the colony Sir Henry Vane
and Reverend John Wheelwright are among the more famous supporters though there is much
focus on Hutchinson.
The historiography of midwifery in early colonial America is found in many accounts
from Carol F. Karlsen’s The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, Witchcraft in Colonial New
England (New York, 1998); Ruth Plimpton’s, Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker
(Boston, 1994); Amanda Porterfield’s, Female Piety in Puritan New England (New York,
1992); and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in
Northern New England (New York, 1991). From these sources are derived the problems of
women who practice midwifery in the colonial period.
As the reader moves away from the controversy of Antinomianism, Hutchinson’s
personal history emerges. Housekeeping, childbearing and ordinary churchgoing, albeit with the
challenges of early colonial life and combined with frankness of speech defines Anne
Hutchinson. This thesis intends to address the appeal of Hutchinson speaking frankly to the
ladies first, and not focus solely on the trials that followed afterward except to use them as a
context for how she was treated by the men in power. That she had her own “book club” through
association with midwifery before she became known as a dissenter and heretic is an important
footnote in her life. Sometimes the pots and pans history of women is where the real story lies.
For decades, historiography of colonial America often focused on men. The documents
of the Antinomian Controversy and Anne Hutchinson’s place in the historical context of the
controversy still fascinate historians nearly four-hundred years after her civil and church trials
for contempt of church doctrine. Her offenses led to her banishment and excommunication
which requires a closer look at her primary task in the colony as a midwife. Because it is men

11
who wrote profoundly about her; it is evident that she was later famous not only for her part in
Antinomianism but because she was an educated midwife.
In colonial times the profile of a typical woman tried for witchcraft was one of a suspect
group known for making special remedies, providing nursing and serving as midwives. The
underlying link here is obvious; the ability to heal and the ability to harm seemed intimately
related. What cannot be explained as a woman’s right to interpret the scriptures must therefore
be explained as a woman being led astray by evil forces. Clearly the wisest course for
Hutchinson was to blend in and not seem too openly self-assertive. To behave otherwise was to
open herself to suspicion within the community. Accusing a woman such as Hutchinson of
being misguided and banished from the colony was a sheer waste of her talent and knowledge.
The women of Boston were consequently deprived of her healing and midwifery skills. Instead,
what could have been a proud occupation for Hutchinson and a field for lively intellectual
inquiry was discredited by Governor Winthrop and others.
Hutchinson’s life as a midwife and prophetess is a cautionary tale. Her history and story
is an exploration of the lives that midwives and healers led in early Colonial America. Clearly
she was an individual first, one who left her comfortable home in England for conscience’s sake
and persuaded her family to come to America. There she collided with the clergy and was
expelled from the colony she first called home. She later helped to found a freer settlement in a
new wilderness in Rhode Island, and after her husband died she moved to another area where she
perished with almost all her family at the hands of the Amerindians. Her story is a unique one
for any woman but her ability to form a reading club with the women of her colony is substantial
reason for examining her history.

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Chapter I
Puritan Midwife Anne Hutchinson Forms the First Women’s Book Club in America
It was among her female neighbors in need of medical skills that Hutchinson first
communicated her controversial religious ideas. Puritan doctrine did not allow women a wide
sphere of influence except within the mysteries of childbirth and nursing since men were usually
excluded from this womanly form of healing and gossip. Affairs which were typically female
such as childbirth provided a freedom for women to speak their mind in which the male
dominion was not present. While still living in London, the young Anne Marbury, later
Hutchinson assisted her mother during the births of three of her siblings: Thomas, born in 1606;
Anthony, in 1608; and Katherine in 1610. The experience contributed directly to her later career
as a midwife and nurse and her refusal to accept the church’s doctrine that innocent infants were
all born in original sin.7
Hutchinson was born in Alford, England to Francis and Bridget Marbury on July 17,
1591.8 Her father was a deacon in Northampton and previously imprisoned for his preaching,
released and again arrested. He was later reinstated and sent to a church in London with his wife
and children. Marbury was primarily guilty of criticizing the unworthiness of other ministers
and was considered a radical Puritan and non-conformist. He wanted to abolish all the pomp and
ceremony of the Church of England.9
7 Michael P. Winship, Making Heretics: Militant Protestantism and Free Grace in
Massachusetts, 1636-1641 (Princeton, NJ: University Press of Kansas, 2002), 35-37.
8 Winship, Times and Trials, 6.
9 Winship, Times and Trials, 7-8.

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At the time of Hutchinson’s birth, Queen Elizabeth had reigned for almost thirty-three
years in spite of the many Catholic plots by the French and Scots to overthrow her. England was
known as a powerful Protestant country and had been continually engaged in expensive warfare
against Catholic enemies since 1585. English adventurers and visionaries planned a great
Protestant empire in North America. The population of England continued to rise rapidly and
work was in short supply. For many of England’s inhabitants the prospect of starting over in
New England with greater religious freedom and less strife was very appealing. Puritan agitation
was high during the 1580s and Elizabeth stopped her parliament in their efforts to reform the
Church of England along the puritan lines.10
The majority of Elizabethan Protestants believed that God restricted women’s calling to
the domestic sphere, where they should cultivate their spiritual lives as wives and mothers.
Hutchinson’s mother would have introduced her daughter to the art of nursing the sick and
midwifery. These skills were valued in an age when doctors were few and medical knowledge
sketchy. While she would continue to learn from her mother as a young woman she took part in
religious activities as approved by the puritans. Weekday lectures and periodic fast and
thanksgiving days were appropriate to the occasion. She would likely find these activities
stimulating rather than boring. In this setting she gained her familiarity with a wide range of
Protestant opinion on the finer points of religious dispute.11
In the first decade of Hutchinson’s life she obtained her religious instruction from her
father who exercised many concerns about England’s religious situation and how it would soon
10 Winship, Making Heretics, 14-15.
11 David Hall, ed., The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Documentary History,
2nd ed. (Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1999) 19.

14
change. Queen Elizabeth was dying and it was expected that the Stuart King, James VI of
Scotland who was Presbyterian would assume the English throne upon her death. However,
when he became James I of England in 1603 he dashed the hopes of the Puritans. In order to
ensure obedience of puritans, the Church of England in 1604 instituted a requirement that all
clergymen swear that they believed every aspect of the church’s government was agreeable to
the Bible. The strictest of the nonconforming puritans such as Hutchinson’s father Marbury
would not take the oath.12
During the time of James I’s reign women were embracing Puritanism. Many married
women, under the domination of their husbands in accordance with law, displayed their own
independence by pursuing underground activities such as assisting in distributing printed tracts
which they hid from their spouses. The King’s opinion of women reflected long-standing
expressed fears that women were untrustworthy, conspiratorial creatures who at every given
chance would attempt to establish their own devotional cults. The King and his bishops
reiterated that midwives must never be allowed to baptize newborns, even when no priest was
available or when the baby was on the verge of death. He further degreed that only licensed
ministers could be allowed to preach. These proclamations touched Hutchinson’s life only
subtly at first, but would later affect her both personally and professionally in her midwife
career.13 One of the very first pieces of legislation that the King called on Parliament to enact
was a stiff new witchcraft statute. The 1604 law made witchcraft punishable by hanging and in
case there was any lingering doubt as to the sex of witches James I reissued his best-selling witch
13 Wallace Notestein, A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 (New York:
T. Y. Crowell Co., 1968), 105-106.

15
tract, Daemonologie, published in Scotland in 1597.14 This was the atmosphere of Hutchinson’s
youth as she entered into womanhood.
In August 1612 she married her former neighbor William Hutchinson.15 Her keen mind
continued to be intrigued by what other learned ministers of the day such as Reverend John
Cotton and her brother-in-law John Wheelwright preached. Hutchinson became more certain
that the New World was the only answer for her freedom of belief. Her mysticism and prophecy
divined from the Bible convinced her that she was tasked to follow them: “Nothing great ever
befel me that was not made known to me beforehand.”16 While in England Hutchinson lived
about twenty miles from Cotton who was a skillful orator and minister. He refused to wear the
surplice, use the cross in baptism, or compel communicants to kneel for the sacrament. He
attracted many at his parish in St. Botolph’s with his ideas of purity in worship. Hutchinson was
certain he provided her with an interpretation of her revelations about current church dogma.
She admired his preaching, especially his emphasis on experiencing the divine and she
regarded any minister who taught differently than he as deluded. She knew her Bible in great
detail and viewed Bible verses that came into her mind as revelations from God giving her
spiritual insights and even glimpses into the future. She read the scriptures and received
revelations and prophecies which were revealed to her through her own reflections. Further, she
believed that proof of God’s salvation was revealed by Scripture which caused a sudden feeling
14 Kenneth Fincham and Peter Lake, “The Ecclesiastical Policy of King James I” Journal
of British Studies 24, no. 2 (April 1985): 169-207, accessed April 1, 2014,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/175702.
16 Timothy D. Hall, Anne Hutchinson: Puritan Prophet, ed. Mark C. Carnes (Boston:
Longman, 2010) 42.

16
of love and joy. People who had the same experiences as Hutchinson’s were sealed to Christ and
became one of His saints. She often claimed that if she had a half hour’s talk with a man, she
would be able to tell if he were among the saved or not.17
In England Hutchinson was pregnant every fifteen to twenty-three months and often
unable to appear in Church so she began following the example of Reverend Cotton by holding
meetings at her own home. She discussed her own personal reinterpretations of the scriptures.
She spoke to the women she knew through child birthing sessions or had nursed their families
through illness. Her skill as a midwife was already bringing her new contacts; a way of
maintaining a rapport with the women around her whom she hoped to awaken to new ideas with
her own revelations of the scripture. Hutchinson worked alongside her mother and learned
herbal ointments, salves and medicines for nursing the sick back to health. Mothers-to-be placed
themselves in Hutchinson’s steady hands counting on her skill rather than superstition to deliver
their children. These large and devoted followers attested to her success in her chosen calling as
midwife and spiritual healer.
Reverend Cotton later sailed to New England aboard the Griffin. The other travelers with
Cotton included the Hutchinsons’ twenty-one year old son Edward their oldest child, as well as
another Edward Hutchinson who was William’s youngest brother.18 The Hutchinsons
themselves set sail as an entire family for the American colonies in the summer of 1634 on the
same vessel that had brought Cotton the year before. They left England largely in order to
remain parishioners of Reverend Cotton for Hutchinson had known no other minister who able to
17 Carnes, Winship, 27.
18 David Hall, 19.

17
follow the logic of salvation more convincingly than Cotton. During the voyage Hutchinson
found herself at odds with the Reverend Zechariah Symmes.19 Their dislike of each other was
mutual. Hutchinson and others endured long sermons from Symmes in which he denigrated the
women. During one of their arguments she put forth the revelation that they would be at New
England within three weeks. Her forecast proved accurate and Symmes decided that on arrival
he would report the story to the authorities. This he did, which delayed her entry into the Church
of Boston but she ultimately overcame this with the support of Reverend Cotton who wielded
tremendous influence over the colony.
She made no secret of the fact she had come three thousand miles over water for the sake
of seeing Reverend Cotton and listening again to his sermons. The Hutchinsons were well
known upon landing in America and entered Boston society under Cotton’s wing, who had no
suspicion that they were going to cause him so much trouble. Their first sight of land when they
docked on September 18, 1634 was the church meetinghouse; the main building in town and
soon to be the focal point of Hutchinson’s life.
The meetinghouse played a large role in all of the colony’s life. The colony was formed
by men who did not conform to the rituals and government of the Anglican Church in England.
Many were followers of John Calvin who taught a great simplicity of life. Citizens of the colony
and their behaviors were closely guarded by the clergy and magistrates. All frivolous
amusements were forbidden, a curfew was established, and everyone was expected to save their
souls and labor for the further development of the colony. The minister of the colony wielded
great control over the life of his followers.

18
The leading minister of the colony was Reverend Richard Mather who preached against
stage plays and card playing. Despite the wealth of some of the newcomers to the colony there
was still an antagonism toward the finer things of life that help to lighten the burden of just
existing and which justify life itself. The New England Puritans only allowed themselves one
full holiday in the course of the year and that was Thanksgiving Day, a time for feasting. There
was a Fast Day in the spring which gave freedom from work but that was a day for sermons at
the meetinghouse. The celebration of Christmas was not observed by the true New England
Puritans until the middle of the nineteenth century.
Books found in the average family were the Bible, the Psalm Book, an almanac, school
primer and sermons by the ministers of the day. The hardships were many since there was much
sickness. While it has been recorded that everyone was obliged to go to church, the size of the
meetinghouses, the isolated locations of many of the houses, and care of numerous younger
children show the statement could not be taken literally by the women. Here Hutchinson would
flourish since she could recall the sermons and repeat with her own opinions what was said in the
meetinghouses to those women confined to outlying farms or too sick to attend church.
The house that her husband built in Boston was spacious enough to later hold the crowd
of followers who would congregate at her meetings and was on the same street as the former
Governor, John Winthrop. She plunged into the life of her community and appeared popular
though it must be noted that Winthrop, father of the colony was not enthusiastic about her. He
does not mention her in his journals until he has something unfavorable to report. Winthrop was
her nearest neighbor and held great political power in New England.
Winthrop writes of “one Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church of Boston, a woman
of a ready wit and bold spirit, brought over with her two dangerous errors: 1. That the person of

19
the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person. 2. That no sanctification can help to evidence to us
our justification.”20 Further mention of Hutchinson can be found at the same time in Johnson’s
Wonder-Working Providence: “She was a woman of kind heart and practical capacity of various
kinds, possessed, too, of a fervent spirit and an intellect so keen that she was held to be the
masterpiece of woman’s wit.”21 There were many other friendships Hutchinson could call on in
the colony. Sir Henry Vane, son of the King’s Privy councilor in England and later to become
governor of the colony became acquainted with the Hutchinsons through Cotton’s friends. He
believed as Hutchinson did that people could be inspired by God and that truth was revealed to
Christians as it had been revealed to the prophets of old.22
In addition to friendships formed through church, Hutchinson’s arrival in the colony had
the advantage of making the acquaintance of neighbors in which she could use her nursing skills.
She found her expertise of medicinal herbs and roots learned while in England to be needed in
the new world. At the time there were only three other healers in the colony. Thomas Oliver, an
elder of the church and a surgeon, and William Dinely a barber-surgeon who routinely pulled
teeth, applied leeches and trimmed hair. But the most colorful member of the local medical
profession and one who would follow, albeit sometimes unsteadily in Hutchinson’s footsteps
was Jane Hawkins, a midwife. Hawkins’ healing devices and manner prompted rumors of
familiarity with the devil and she was rejected for church membership. Eager for acceptance,
she embraced Hutchinson even though Hawkins was known for providing the “physicks” of the
20 John Winthrop, Winthrop’s Journal. Vol. 1 of The History of New England 1630-
1649, ed. J. Franklin Jameson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908), 195.
21 Edward Johnson, Wonder-Working Providence, 1628-1651, 1st ed. Reprint. ed. J.
Franklin Jameson (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1959), 127.
22 David Hall, 18-19.

20
community: equal parts faith healing and dabbling with herbs to either end or conceive childbirth
among the women.23
Jane Hawkins is linked largely to Hutchinson’s support as a heretic under the suspicion of
witchcraft. Since she was not a church member, she had the least status in the community. She
was allowed to listen to church sermons at Hutchinson’s meetings which was a huge attraction to
Hawkins but she was looked askance by other elders of the colony. According to Governor
Winthrop Hawkins was known “to give young women oil of mandrake and other stuff to cause
conception,” and “grew into great suspicion to be a witch, for it was credibly reported that when
she gave any medicines she would ask the party, if she did believe, she could help her, etc.”24
Later her reputation was brought into Hutchinson’s civil trial only after the decision was made to
rid the colony of Hutchinson and others who persisted in heretical opinions.25
Women healers were long under the threat of male suspicion of their talents. Women
such as Hutchinson worked with nature, encouraging the vital spirit rather than attacking disease
with bleeding by leeches or other deadly remedies. Her spiritualism that the body was enthralled
with Christ’s love made her an excellent healer and herbalist, often working from her own
intuition. She would prescribe painkillers and anesthetics among her herbal remedies to mitigate
the suffering of women during childbirth. This was in direct opposition to the teachings of the
church that taught the pain women suffered during childbirth was Eve’s curse and not to be
interfered with.
23 Battis, 84.
24 Winthrop, 268.
25 Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, Witchcraft in Colonial New
England (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1998) 14-15.

21
Midwifery involved women whose work touched them daily on matters of life and death.
Colonial woman were responsible for the health of their families and medical knowledge was
handed down from mother to daughter. In the colonies it was understood that witchcraft was
passed on as well. However, in Hutchinson’s case though she was called many things in the
name of her religious beliefs it is likely that she was particularly susceptible to witchcraft
suspicion. Many midwives frequently fell under suspicion, though the skills that made women
of the colony suspect were the very skills needed to care for their families. Informal witchcraft
accusations were later made against Hutchinson and Hawkins, and insinuations made about Dyer
after Hutchinson’s civil trial. Though none of these women were officially tried as a witch and
witchcraft was never mentioned in any of the actions taken against them, a taint still lingered.
Their stories, if interrelated do reveal much about how some of the colony viewed midwifery
skills.
Throughout the centuries it was accepted that woman are healers and connected to each
other through their ability to create life. Church beliefs at the time perceived women to be earthy
while men were believed to be closer to God and holders of the spiritual truth. For Hutchinson
the midwife to teach, violated this basic tenet for the church tried hard to regulate the natural
world and order the spiritual world. Here she differed from other women of her ilk for she was
more open and willing to challenge and confront men. To the Puritan men with a rigid view of
how women should act such freedom was terrifying and dangerous. It disrupted their world and
Hutchinson’s own revelations regarding her interpretations of religion were seen as a corrupting
influence on other women.
Traditionally at this time midwifery had been one area in which women had some power,
and the only training for those wishing to study midwifery was by apprenticeship. Many gained

22
their skills solely by observation. In England where Hutchinson was born, it was customary
when a woman started in labor to send for neighbors. This was partly to bear witness to the
child’s birth and partly to spread the knowledge of midwifery since in an emergency any woman
might be called on to minister to the mother and baby. Hutchinson’s abilities as a nurse and
midwife went back almost three decades to her teenaged years in London. Her sick patients
always felt better and mothers and newborn infants under her care almost always came through
in good condition.
As a midwife she was able to move freely about the community and could talk at will
about whatever she chose. This was a powerful incentive to choose the Bible as a book to
discuss, dissect and learn new meanings about spiritual enhancement of one’s soul. She did not
hesitate to use these tools to her advantage to help the women in her community. She cultivated
a throng of admirers who were bound to her by gratitude. There was much sickness in the
colony and there were always more babies being born. Her reputation for wisdom in the hour of
a woman’s need brought healing; not only her tinctures and broths, but her soft dispensation of
what was preached by ministers.
As Hutchinson ministered good works among the sick it was natural woman should open
their minds to her and talk without fear of reprisal. Woman spoke of their illness, Puritan
husbands, their children, the laws that took away their possessions, and the bitter winters. They
also discussed the Puritan clothing and strictures they were under. For example, the Reverend
Roger Williams preached that women should go veiled, but Reverend Cotton preached against
this. What Hutchinson thought was of great interest to these women.
Her charitable attitude and solicitude won her the affection of the female community. At
the bedsides of the sick and child bearing she aided in their recovery both physical and spiritual.

23
As she inquired about their faith she also found that many had been trusting good deeds in a
good life as evidence of salvation. She felt this to be a spirit of bondage to Puritan work ethics.
Without holding Christ in their heart, many women expected to ascend to heaven based on their
good works on earth and had long given up their souls to this idea.
Hutchinson brought these topics into the open, giving women a change to express
themselves. No better expression lay in the news that a neighbor’s baby was on the way and she
was called. The mother would want spiritual comfort as well as physical. This she could do
with great conviction unmindful of what the ministers might say about God’s elect. She
preached a doctrine of love and sanctification by faith to her sisters in the colony and her views
were now bordering on antinomianism. Her revelations revealed that God’s gift of grace
relieved women of responsibility for obeying moral laws of the Old Testament. After
Hutchinson left their home, many a thoughtful woman repeated to her husband what she learned.
These words were compared with ministers such as Reverend Cotton’s. The word spread from
house to house via private conversations which started with Hutchinson and went from wife to
husband and later to friends and neighbors.
Hutchinson would meditate on the meagerness of social intercourse and inspiration for
the women of the colony and she sought to prove that she could solve this problem. Nursing was
often conducted in ill-heated houses under distasteful circumstances which might not be
conducive to the best discussions of the Bible. She decided she would hold meetings in her own
house and hold them particularly for women. This would give the women something of their
own in a new country; a chance to learn and talk among themselves. Women need a community
of their own. Members of the colony attended church twice on Sunday and once on Thursday
lecture day. For the people of Boston this was the only devotional exercise authorized or

24
permitted by the state.26 Families separated at the door of the meetinghouse, women on one side
and men on the other facing the Reverend Cotton, minister to the church of Boston.
The neighborhood prayer meetings were often overlooked by Hutchinson herself due to
her nursing and spiritual exercises. Soon her absences made her conspicuous and she became a
target for local gossip. Reverend Cotton visited her, and since she was a learned female the
seeds were planted that she could teach the gospel herself as well as anyone else could at the
neighborhood prayer meetings. She innocently began to repeat Cotton’s sermons to others along
with her own explanations when confusion arose as to what the Reverend had meant.
Hutchinson began her meetings with the women of the colony slowly and informally. At
first she met once a week with only five or six women. Her sole purpose at the time was to
discuss the latest sermon of Cotton. Later her audiences grew larger as women in Boston and
neighboring towns attended as well. The first handful of women who appeared in her parlor
were housewives who had missed previous sermons at the church. Hutchinson’s early followers
were women who were lonely and separated from their friends and family in England; ones who
had turned for advice and comfort on pregnancy and illness to her. They were raised in the Old
World of England and now were on the brink of a new civilization which they neither knew nor
understood and Hutchinson helped them to process their feelings and understand the religion of
the colony.
Since the Puritanical idea was that women remain in the home, most women did not even
have the comfort their men did of leaving the house for fresh air and their expected jobs. The
annual birth of babies kept women housebound. The dissatisfaction Hutchinson felt at sick
bedsides about the spiritual state of other women in the colony was laid to rest as she expounded
26 Battis, 87.

25
upon her beliefs to a growing audience. She was already keenly aware there was frustration and
intellectual stagnation for those women who were well educated. The women of the colony
could not dance, go to a play, no music worth mentioning, no books except dull ones, but they
could talk and talk they did.
Her meetings were at first intended for those women who were unable to get to church.
If a woman was sick or bedridden it deprived her of the sole recreational and cultural facility
available in the town, on Sunday and Thursday. On a Monday women were invited to her house
to come and talk over the sermon of the preceding Sunday.27 The meetings were successful and
after a while ceased to belong exclusively to the women. Hutchinson explained what the
minister preached, added some paraphrases of her own, and then it was short a step to expressing
her own opinion with criticism of the minister’s words.28 The most voluble of all the women
came home from her meetings and spoke to their men. These women had not found such a relish
in life since the time before they left England.
Mary Dyer who later came to an unhappy end over her Quaker beliefs was among the
first to attend and became one of Hutchinson’s most ardent supporters. Jane Hawkins the
midwife under suspicion within the colony also came, repeating to Hutchinson the finer points of
her lectures to show her understanding. Thus Hutchinson innocently stepped into a breach of
meetinghouse etiquette. At lectures women remained silent but here in the Hutchinson home
they spoke aloud without fear of censure. Hutchinson was eager to clarify Cotton’s sermons and
27 Battis, 87.
28 Battis, 85.

26
interpret religious doctrine. Unfortunately her interpretation of his sermons would later border
on heresy.29
Initially Cotton was delighted that she further spread his word for his own beliefs
paralleled hers; though she was far more open about her revelations and prophecy. Husbands
intrigued by their wives’ accounts started attending her meetings as well. Attendance was not
confined to any single social or economic group though William Coddington the richest man in
the colony was a faithful visitor. The confident Hutchinson went further for soon she was
deriding the ministers’ understanding of scripture and she denounced the leaders of the
community. By December of 1636 her meetings with the leaders of the colony showed her
views to be biased toward the only minister in Massachusetts besides John Wheelwright who she
believed preached gospel correctly: Reverend Cotton. Cotton said of her at the time: “She did
much good in our town, in woman’s meeting and at childbirth travails, wherein she was not only
skilful and helpful, but readily fell into good discourse with the women.”30 Cotton attributed
much of her success in the colony to her midwifery skills. Though he may have valued her
conversational manners and her knowledge of theology, he was not yet ready to publicly write of
speak of them as yet. Nor was he aware that the midwife was forming her own reading circle
among the housewives.
Puritan men discouraged women from examining the ideology of religion. Claiming the
powers of prophecy and revelations revealed to her through the scriptures Hutchinson led prayer
meetings in her Boston home attracting hundreds of both female and later male followers.
29 Battis, 91.
30 David Hall, 412.

27
Ministers of the day considered her a threat to social order and the noted Puritan subordination of
women to men. In her meetings she spoke of doctrine which was inconsistent with the principles
that the colony was founded upon. In their daily life the Puritans believed the new doctrine
would encourage others to “indolence or loose-living.”31 She is a key player in early church
controversies of “free grace,” but later as the Antinomian Controversy dies away she still
remains famous.
As Hutchinson became more outspoken a turmoil later settled around her that was called
the Antinomian Controversy or free grace controversy. Hutchinson's ideas were branded as the
heresy of Antinomianism and her followers became known as “Antinomians." Intended to be
derogatory, the term was erroneously applied to those who did not believe that the inner Holy
Spirit released them from obligation to moral law. During this time it was a terrible thing to be
called an Antinomian. They were regarded by the Puritans as enemies of the church. In the
church of Hutchinson’s time it meant rejecting the literal “law” of the Old Testament for the
spiritual “gospel” of the New Testament. This is what the New England Puritans professed to
have done in theory yet they in turn had built their religion upon the Old Testament and though
ministers claimed not to, they preached a Covenant of Works.
Works were no evidence of justification nor was profession of religious orthodoxy.
Neither in the end was a profession of a conversion experience. Hutchinson’s beliefs hinged on
the idea that the Spirit of God dwelt in the saved; that human personality virtually ceased to exist
for they were one with God. The Antinomians further believed that holiness consisted in a state
31 Edmund S. Morgan, “The Case against Anne Hutchinson,” The New England
Quarterly 10, no. 4 (December 1937): 637, accessed April 4, 2014,
http://wwww.jstor.org/stable/359929.

28
of heart, not in good works. They upheld a Covenant of Grace based on a direct revelation in the
individual soul rather than the Covenant of Works. Essentially their teachings were giving
liberty in an age not prepared for it.32 Their teaching provided for a liberty of the heart and soul
rather than a labor of true and good works toward an uncertain salvation. The controversy came
down to this: those who rested their hope of salvation on a good heart and those who rested it on
good deeds.
The whole colony began discussing Hutchinson and her works. Middle ground was
tough to find. Within the colony friends and enemies became known as Hutchinsonians or anti-
Hutchinsonians.33 So many woman had encouraged their husbands to listen to her that a second
weekly meeting was conducted in which both men and women were invited. Sometimes as
many as eighty men and women crowded into her parlor to hear her interpretation of the previous
week’s sermon.34 The women of the colony who benefited greatly from her midwife skills and
her ability to form close attachments with them flocked to her living-room meetings. However,
some of them found their husbands began looking on Hutchinson as the Devil’s agent and
labeled her meetings as sinister since they took the women away from their work at home. What
Winthrop must have felt watching from behind his curtains at what went on in his carefully
controlled colony is not known. But soon he began to denounce her meetings and was joined by
the Reverend Thomas Weld.
Many of the more prominent men already believed that the women chattered too much
among themselves, and another women instructing them in the gospel went against God’s word
32 Carnes, Winship, 35.
33 Battis, 101-103.
34 Ibid.

29
and would stir dissension. It would not be long before Hutchinson and her disciples would be
exposed. At this period of time none of Hutchinson’s critics attended any of her meetings and
her female followers started maintaining stricter silence in the face of their husbands’
disapproval.
At a lost to explain such loyalty to Anne from the women, many observers fell back on
the Devil theory. Midwives were often considered to be in the company of outside forces.
Midwives and healers were sometimes accused of abortion and infanticide and were likely
suspects for evil and heresy. They were ever-present reminders of the power that resided in
women’s life giving and life maintaining roles. The midwife Hutchinson was under suspicion
not only for her religious leanings but for her important role in the wives’ life.
Ben Barker Benfield in his article “Anne Hutchinson and the Puritan Attitude Toward
Woman,” sums the situation as:
. . . [T]hat regenerate men were illumined with divine truth and therefore were priests
unto themselves; that women might feel themselves excluded from the relief afforded
men by covenant theology; that Anne Hutchinson’ antinomianism was in part, at least, a
response to the need thereby created in women; that Winthrop recognized that response;
and that his own reaction was largely influenced by what he perceived as a sexual threat;
that this sexual threat was intensified by Hutchinson’s role as midwife; that the
explanation for the Puritan invidiousness in the treatment of women, and the virulence of
Winthrop’s response to Hutchinson lay in the male need to give more definition to men
and to God than the initial Protestant dynamic had allowed, and to find an object
correlated for such definition in the sexual relationship.35
Hutchinson and her skills were up against the superstitions about midwifery and attitudes
about the proper place of midwifery in the running of society. There was always strict controls
on the practice of midwifery stemming long before the arrival of the colonists from England.
35Ben Benfield Barker, “Anne Hutchinson and the Puritan Attitude to Women,” Feminist
Studies 1, no. 2 (Autumn 1972): 66, accessed November 21, 2013,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3177641.

30
Among the abuses to be outlawed: a midwife must never cause or allow a woman to name the
wrong father of her child, claim another woman’s child as her own, murder an infant, use
witchcraft, charms or sorcery, administer any herbs or potions that would cause abortion or allow
a woman to deliver her baby in secret. Now these strictures were set against Hutchinson in
alliance with her teachings. Men in the colony believed that by the subterfuge of midwifery
Hutchinson might succeed in gathering a large enough female following to align against the men
in domestic and church matters. An eminent female takeover by the very women who had to
uphold such strict standards in delivering babies could be considered tantamount to black magic
and the passing of dark secrets.
As Hutchinson began to speak more plainly it was apparent that she knew who would be
saved, including herself. Unfortunately many of those who were not really saved were pillars of
the community. This included almost all the ministers, except of course John Cotton. Male
elders saw this as a female usurpation of rightful authority. Hutchinson was putting her opinions
in Cotton’s mouth and at the time was doing so privately within her home. How long would
Winthrop wait for a public test of strength against this midwife? It was not easy as her audience
grew and colonists began to travel into Boston to her teachings.
On October 25, 1636 there was a meeting in Reverend Cotton’s house with Pastor
Wilson, Elder Thomas Leverett, Deacon Coggeshall and Reverend Wheelwright. Their concerns
lay with Hutchinson and the rumors circulating that she accused them of preaching “not
according to the gospel.”36 Cotton called her to come to his house and give her opinions. She
believed the ministers taught that people could have an assurance of salvation from their holiness

31
and not from a scripture revelation of God’s love. She believed further that their preaching did
not have the seal of the Spirit which happened only to the apostles.37 Being compared to Christ’s
disciples did not unduly concern all the ministers and laymen present. Some understood her to
say that while the colony’s ministers were decent preachers they were not as spiritually
developed as Reverend Cotton because they had not yet experienced the Holy Spirit in its full
force. Some of the men shrugged her revelations off as observations by an untrained woman.
However, she believed that it was only after Christ’s death that the apostles were converted to
the covenant of grace she spoke freely about. Therefore the ministers of Massachusetts with
their sermons were harassing those who like Hutchinson truly understood the meaning of free
grace. The Puritans of the colony believed in the Bible scriptures which held women in their
place and this was exactly the reason Hutchinson insisted on her ability to communicate directly
with God and reveal her own interpretation of the Scriptures. As an intelligent woman she could
not accept the minister’s insistence that only the manifestation of outer piety in good deeds could
assure human salvation. Cotton later told her it was regrettable that she made comparisons
between ministers.38
When Hutchinson with the aid of Governor Vane and Reverend Cotton attempted to
have her brother-in-law Reverend Wheelwright installed as a third minister of the Boston church,
most of the congregation supported her. But the pastor of the church Reverend John Wilson
gave a speech on the "inevitable dangers of separation" caused by the religious dissensions and
38 Ibid.

32
joined with Winthrop in opposing her.39 Many of her supporters deserted her when then
Governor Vane who favored her cause lost his office to her staunch opponent, John Winthrop.
In addition, it was not proven that Boston needed a third minister and Winthrop in the end did
carry the vote, but barely.
More importantly, the Hutchinson faction had finally made a move that Winthrop could
challenge. He now could question before the whole congregation gathered in the church the
suspect opinions that Hutchinson had been fostering. What started as a religious point of
difference grew into a schism that threatened the political stability of the colony. To her
opponents questioning the church meant questioning the State.40 Winthrop began to take note of
the activities of Hutchinson and Wheelwright by October of 1636.41 Cotton himself remained
infuriatingly aloof throughout the controversy. He appeared to initially enjoy the adulation of
Hutchinson yet refused to embrace her against the pragmatism of Winthrop.
During a fasting day at church, Reverend Wheelwright’s sermon angered Winthrop and
the former governor called a council. Weeks earlier there had been problems at the city ports
over levies on imports, so the town was already simmering. Reverend Wheelwright was charged
with sedition and contempt, and remanded to trial. His trial would greatly affect Hutchinson’s
reputation and life in Boston. While Wheelwright awaited a court verdict, Hutchinson and her
followers refused to sign petitions against him.42
39 Henretta, James A., W. Elliot Brownlee, David Brody, and Susan Ware. America's
History: Vol. One. (New York: Worth Publishers, 1993), 145-146.
40 Morgan, 638.
41 Winthrop, 239-243.
42 Morgan, 643.

33
The session of the General Court which began on November 2, 1637 at the meetinghouse
had the purpose to "rid the colony of the sectaries who would not be dragooned into the
abandonment of their convictions."43 One of the first orders of business was to deal with
Wheelwright, whose case had been long deferred by Winthrop in hopes that he might finally see
the error of his ways. When asked if he was ready to confess his offenses Wheelwright
responded that "he was not guilty, that he had preached nothing but the truth of Christ, and he
was not responsible for the application they [the other ministers] made of it". Winthrop painted a
picture of a peaceful colony before Wheelwright's arrival, and how after his fast-day sermon
Boston men refused to join the Pequot War effort, Pastor Wilson was often slighted, and
controversy arose in town meetings.44 The court urged him to leave the colony voluntarily but
this he would not do, seeing such a move as being an admission of guilt. After further argument
in the case the court declared him guilty and read the sentence.45 Wheelwright was initially
given until March to leave the colony, but when ordered not to preach during the interim, he
refused and was then given two weeks to depart the jurisdiction. When directed not to preach
during his two weeks of preparation, he again refused, and this time the court determined that
such an injunction was not worth pursuing.46
As the Wheelwright controversy swirled around, Hutchinson realized she herself was in
danger by the Spring and Summer of 1637. Aside from her divided teachings, she was
dangerously close to committing an act of heresy according to church tenets. The men who
43 Battis, 180-183.
44 Ibid.
46 Battis, 184-185.

34
controlled the affairs of the colony determined that not only the churches but the government of
the commonwealth should be conducted strictly upon the teachings of the Bible. The
Massachusetts Bay Colony courts were not predicated on any set of judicial laws and she could
be tired in civil court.
The Governor, Deputy Governor and Assistants held courts for the ‘ordering of affairs’
and exercised the entire judicial powers of the colony. During this period few laws or orders
were passed. When complaints were made the court upon hearing them determined whether the
conduct of the accused was such in their opinion to deserve punishment. If that were so, a
punishment was decided upon. Here lay the problem with indicting Hutchinson for trials were
conducted without any regard to the English precedents. There was no defined criminal code
and what constituted a crime and its punishment was entirely within the discretion of the court.
How to try a midwife for her heresy in Scripture readings? If in doubt as to what should be
considered an offence the Bible was looked to for guidance. The General Court itself from time
to time questioned the ministers or elders which they answered in writing; much like the
Attorney General or Supreme Court today may advise.47
By Autumn 1637 the dissension of her teachings in the colony erupted into a firestorm.
No neutrality was possible. The colony’s residents were forced to stand with Governor
Winthrop and his clergy or with the Hutchinsonians. The clash between Hutchinson and the
Massachusetts authorities is a great spark in history. This controversy provided that
excommunication from the church and prosecution by the court seemed the only viable sources
for a midwife who was out of line. Yet no magistrate was prepared at this time to have a
47 James F. Cooper, Jr., “Anne Hutchinson and the “Lay Rebellion” against the Clergy,”
The New England Quarterly 61, no. 3 (September 1988): 385, accessed April 1, 2014,
http: //www.jstor.org/stable/366286.

35
singular woman pose the most dangerous challenge that the Massachusetts establishment was
forced to cope with during their colony’s first half-century.
Hutchinson is often viewed as a martyr for her convictions but she was not burned at the
stake or suffered prolonged imprisonment, she was asked to leave the area; others had left the
colony before her over religious dissent. The men prosecuting her were afraid of her beliefs and
they were intolerant of her because of her status as midwife within their community. Her skills
were necessary, but now the question posed before the colony’s elders was were her beliefs
necessary as well. It would all depend on the trial of the general court and the later decision of
the church elders.

36
Chapter Two
The Midwife Stands Trial
Edwin Austin Abbey, Illustration of Anne Hutchinson, [c1896], Reproduced from Popular History of the United States by
William Cullen Bryant, Sidney Howard Gay, and Noah Brooks. New York, C. Scribner’s Sons, 1898. Accessed April1, 2014,
http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/11/anne-hutchinson.html
On August 30, 1637 an assembly of the churches in Boston held by the ministers and
magistrates and known as the Synod met to examine Hutchinson and her supporter’s beliefs.
Afterward they handed Winthrop a list of sixteen errors of “blasphemous, erroneous, and unsafe
opinions” to use against her and her followers.48 Reverend Wheelwright refused to recant his
inflammatory sermon calling for spiritual battle against the Puritans. He became their first
48David Hall, 43.

37
target. This session focused on a petition supporting Wheelwright. The governor, deputy
governor, magistrates, and court officials would together act as judge, jury, and defense
advocates.49 Hutchinson’s brother-in-law, a minister whose ideas made him enemies in the
colony was convinced that the other ministers were incapable of interpreting the gospel correctly
and was banished from Massachusetts—the same punishment threatening Hutchinson for she
had backed his ministry. Indeed had she been a man she would have signed the petition written
up in support of Wheelwright before his forced exile.50 The court dealt with Wheelwright and
then turned to other matters.
Winthrop’s administration focused on eliminating what they considered the heart of the
colony’s problem: a midwife who considered herself prophetic and well educated in theology to
teach the Bible. Winthrop worried that Hutchinson was more popular than all the ministers in
the colony combined.51 Governor Winthrop faced the difficult dilemma of not being able to
tolerate Hutchinson personally and as father of the colony he was unwilling to let her accomplish
any further divisions among the colonists. But he was uncertain of how to convict her. As a
woman she was not entitled to a public role in Puritan society. Accusing her of the crime of
negative impact on the colony was complicated if not impossible since it was known she counted
on others to mount her defense. Since much of the Puritan culture was based on the notion that
women were subservient and inferior; the image of a female who could turn so many minds
against the colony’s teachings was a tough one for Winthrop to sell before the courts.
51 Ibid.

38
Consideration must be paid to the fact that alliance of oneself with a certain minister was a
matter of conscience, and free of the state’s punitive consideration. Winthrop decided to follow
the tactic that she was guilty of slandering the colony’s ministers.
Winthrop’s relationship with Hutchinson was rocky and antagonistic. He had been
governor before, and after his last term she and her husband were firmly entrenched in the
community with the help of his predecessor, Governor Henry Vane. Under Vane’s regime,
unorthodox beliefs were allowed to take hold. Now back in power Winthrop intended to purge
his colony of any opposition. Since the King in England was looking for signs of unrest as an
excuse to rescind the colony’s charter and exert direct control, and the Pequot Indians were
waging war; the fate of the colony hung in the balance.
Puritan contemporary belief insisted that God selected those destined to receive His grace
and enter heaven and these select were the holy ones. These few would discover in their
lifetimes whether they were chosen; a state that Puritans called “assurance.” They would come
to know inwardly that they had been sealed with God’s grace and achieved justification for their
ascent into holiness. This begs the question that if classification as a chosen one was dependent
on God’s will, what difference did a person’s conduct during their life make? This was the line
that divided Hutchinson and her followers from their critics. According to Hutchinson she
believed her grasp of scripture came from the Lord Himself and that good works were crucial for
someone to receive God’s grace. However, one’s conduct was immaterial to their chance of
being chosen.
Most Puritans believed that grace was paramount and that good works were a part of
God’s plan. Good works were also evident of justification. Hutchinson was in trouble with the
ministers because she implied that they were incapable of preaching a covenant of grace because

39
they did have the seal of the spirit and were not even saints. All the events that would propel a
trial forward had already been in motion for some time. An examination of the trial proves that
Hutchinson was unfairly targeted not only for her teachings but the position in which she taught
as a midwife in the community. The trial was a huge event for the public who squeezed
themselves into every bit of empty space in the meetinghouse. Hutchinson was forced to remain
standing while her inquisitors seated themselves in long rows of wooden benches.
Prior to her civil trial Winthrop seems to have thought dealing with the Hutchinson
matter to be relatively easy. She was a woman after all and in any argument with a man in
Puritan culture she would always get the worse end. In a series of private meetings with the
ministers Hutchinson was to be questioned, commanded, threatened and urged to bring herself
back within the bounds of her womanhood. Winthrop intended she would be led to repent her
rash and unfortunate misdeeds with submission before the masculine authority. She would
repent or she would be gone. Yet here Winthrop miscalculated; the ministers got nowhere with
her and she did not betray any female frailty in her arguments.
The following trial transcript is from the General Court transcripts of November 2, 1637.
It appears in Charles Francis Adams’ Antinomianism in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1636-
1638 (1894) and is also contained in the document collection of David Hall’s The Antinomian
Controversy, 1636-1638. The version used in this thesis is the version edited by Mark C. Carnes
and Michael P. Winship in their book The Trial of Anne Hutchinson: Liberty, Law and
Intolerance in Puritan New England for purposes of clarity. A careful reading of the trial record
proves that Hutchinson used as her main defense the fact the ministers did not testify against her
under oath. She believed that this failure to accuse her in a public trial while under oath
understated the amount of pressure which these same people had put on her to talk.

40
While the trial lasted two days, the transcript appears remarkably brief for such an
important event. Notes in journals and publications by Governor Winthrop would later provide
further insight. For the purpose of understanding fully what a woman confronted by an entire
colony of suspicious magistrates and clergy the trial is included in as much entirety as noted in
Carnes and Winship’s book.
Governor Winthrop opened the hearing and let loose against Hutchinson all his pent up
grievances and accusations:
Mrs. Hutchinson, you are called here as one of those that have troubled the peace of the
commonwealth and the churches here; you are known to be a woman that hath had a
great share in the promoting and divulging of those opinions that are the cause of this
trouble, and to be nearly joined not only in affinity and affection with some of those the
court had taken notice of and passed censure upon, but you have spoken divers things, as
we have been informed, very prejudicial to the honour of the churches and ministers
thereof, and you have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath been
condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of
God nor fitting for your sex, and notwithstanding that was cried down you have
continued the same. Therefore we have thought good to send for you to understand how
things are, that if you be in an erroneous way we may reduce you that so you may
become a profitable member here among us. Otherwise if you be obstinate in your course
that then the court may take such course that you may trouble us no further. Therefore I
would intreat you to express whether you do assent and hold in practice to those opinions
and factions that have been handled in court already, that is to say, whether you do not
justify Mr. Wheelwright's sermon and the petition.
Winthrop was aware that as a woman Hutchinson was not allowed to sign the
Wheelwright petition but he asked her if she did justify Reverend Wheelwright’s sermon and the
petition. Hutchinson was already incensed by the governor’s denunciation of her behavior as
“nor fitting for your sex” and his threat that “we may reduce you so that you may become a
profitable member here among us.” If she now agreed to a Covenant of Works, she was certain
that she would be reduced to the mercy of the men and the church which would interfere with her
private dialogue between her conscience and God.

41
The next few minutes the spectators in the court were treated to an angry exchange
between the highest officer of their colony and the midwife he hauled into court as she demanded
the charges against her be read:
Gov. John Winthrop: I have told you some already and can tell you more.
Mrs. Hutchinson: Name one, Sir.
Gov. John Winthrop: Have I not named some already?
Mrs. Hutchinson: What have I said or done?
Gov. John Winthrop: The things that you have done include that you harbored a countenanced
those who are parties in the aforementioned faction.
Mrs. Hutchison: That’s a matter of conscience, Sir.
The governor decided to drop this argument and bring forth another accusation. Hutchinson had
broken a pivotal law which he charged was the Fifth Commandment: “Honor thy father and
mother.” This he deftly translated into a command to obey the rulers and fathers of the colony.
Hutchinson continued to diffuse the governor’s arguments until he snapped at her: “We do not
mean to discourse with those of your sex but only this: you so adhere unto them and do endeavor
to set forward this faction and so you do dishonour us.”
The governor then decided to focus on the meetings at her home, insisting that she had no
right to preach even in the confines of her own home. Since the governor had bent the Fifth
Commandment for their own purposes Hutchinson tried her hand at using a paraphrase from the
Bible. She stated that:
It is lawful for me to do so, as it is all your practices, and can you find a warrant for
yourself and condemn me for the same thing? The ground of my taking it up was, when I
first came to this land because I did not go to such meetings as those were, it was
presently reported that I did not allow of such meetings but held them unlawful and
therefore in that regard they said I was proud and did despise all ordinances. Upon that a
friend came unto me and told me of it and I to prevent such aspersions took it up, but it

42
was in practice before I came. Therefore I was not the first. . . . I conceive there lies a
clear rule in Titus that the elder women should instruct the younger and then I must have
a time wherein I must do it.
The governor responded that: “All this I grant you, I grant you a time for it, but what is
this to the purpose that you Mrs. Hutchinson must call a company together from their callings to
come to be taught of you?. . . . You know that there is no rule that crosses another, but this rule
crosses that in the Corinthians. But you must take it in this sense that elder women must instruct
the younger about their business and to love their husbands and not to make them to clash Mrs.
Hutchinson. To which Hutchinson replied: “Do you think it not lawful for me to teach women
and why do you call me to teach the court?” The governor replied: “We do not call you to teach
the court but to lay open yourself.”
The governor was worried that certain of the female participation proposed by Hutchinson would
destroy the social order of the colony.
Your course is not to be suffered for. Besides that we find such a course as this to be
greatly prejudicial to the state. Besides the occasion that it is to seduce many honest
persons that are called to those meetings and your opinions and your opinions being
known to be different from the word of God may seduce many simple souls that resort
unto you. Besides that the occasion which hath come of late hath come from none but
such as have frequented your meetings, so that now they are flown off from magistrates
and ministers and since they have come to you. And besides that it will not well stand
with the commonwealth that families should be neglected for so many neighbors and
dames and so much time spent. We see no rule of God for this. We see not that any
should have authority to set up any other exercises besides what authority hath already set
up and so what hurt comes of this you will be guilty of and we for suffering you.
The governor had launched into a lengthy speech in which he attacked Hutchinson for
breeding religious disharmony among the women. He accused her of tempting women to go far
beyond their God-given calling of wife, mother, and family. The others Hutchinson counted on

43
for support such as William Coddington and William Colburn spoke not a single word, neither
did the Reverend Cotton.
The Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley jumped in:
I would go a little higher with Mrs. Hutchinson. About three years ago we were all in
peace. Mrs. Hutchinson, from that time she came hath made a disturbance, and some that
came over with her in the ship did inform me what she was as soon as she was landed. I
being then in place dealt with the pastor and teacher of Boston and desired them to
enquire of her, and then I was satisfied that she held nothing different from us. But
within half a year after, she had vented divers of her strange opinions and had made
parties in the country, and at length it comes that Mr. Cotton and Mr. Vane were of her
judgment, but Mr. Cotton had cleared himself that he was not of that mind. But now it
appears by this woman's meeting that Mrs. Hutchinson hath so forestalled the minds of
many by their resort to her meeting that now she hath a potent party in the country. Now
if all these things have endangered us as from that foundation and if she in particular hath
disparaged all our ministers in the land that they have preached a covenant of works, and
only Mr. Cotton a covenant of grace, why this is not to be suffered, and therefore being
driven to the foundation and it being found that Mrs. Hutchinson is she that hath
depraved all the ministers and hath been the cause of what is fallen out, why we must
take away the foundation and the building will fall.
The arguments went back and forth between the Covenant of Works versus the Covenant
of Grace. So far Hutchinson had defend her position ably, leaving the governor to announce:
“Mrs. Hutchinson, the court you see hath laboured to bring you to acknowledge the error of your
way that so you might be reduced, the time grows late, we shall therefore give you a little more
time to consider of it and therefore desire that you attend the court again in the morning.”
The following morning Governor Winthrop resumed court proceedings with the
following:
We proceeded... as far as we could... There were divers things laid to her charge: her
ordinary meetings about religious exercises, her speeches in derogation of the ministers
among us, and the weakening of the hands and hearts of the people towards them. Here
was sufficient proof made of that which she was accused of, in that point concerning the
ministers and their ministry, as that they did preach a covenant of works when others did
preach a covenant of grace, and that they were not able ministers of the New Testament,
and that they had not the seal of the spirit, and this was spoken not as was pretended out
of private conference, but out of conscience and warrant from scripture alleged the fear of
man is a snare and seeing God had given her a calling to it she would freely speak. Some

44
other speeches she used, as that the letter of the scripture held forth a covenant of works,
and this is offered to be proved by probable grounds....Controversy--should the witnesses
should be recalled and made swear an oath, as Mrs. Hutchinson desired, is resolved
against doing so
Hutchinson after careful study of her notes the night before did not believe the ministers
had spoken truthfully as the argument over Covenant of Works versus Grace had preceded. She
asked that the ministers take an oath before testimony. Winthrop replied that only the court
could make a decision about requiring oaths before testimony and this was not a case before a
jury. The governor bypassed the oath taking issue. He pursued his original goal to reducing
Hutchinson to a profitable member of the colony. So far, she had been an unyielding adversary
but the governor allowed her to call witnesses.
John Coggeshall testified: “Yes, I dare say that she did not say all that which they lay
against her. Thomas Leverett, former teacher to Hutchinson and active supporter of Cotton
testified:
To my best remembrance when the elders did send for her, Mr. Peters did with much
vehemency and entreaty urge her to tell what difference there was between Mr. Cotton
and them, and upon his urging of her she said "The fear of man is a snare, but they that
trust upon the Lord shall be safe." And being asked wherein the difference was, she
answered that they did not preach a covenant of grace so clearly as Mr. Cotton did, and
she gave this reason of it: because that as the apostles were for a time without the spirit so
until they had received the witness of the spirit they could not preach a covenant of grace
so clearly.
Reverend Cotton was called and had very little to offer Hutchinson for he used the disclaimer:
“I did not think I should be called to bear witness in this cause and therefore did not labor to call
to remembrance what was done; but the greatest passage that took impression upon me was to
this purpose.” He regretted that a rumor had been started in the colony and “that she had spoken
some condemning words of their ministry . . . but sorry I was that any comparison should be
between me and my brethren and uncomfortable it was.”

45
Hutchinson’s response was her speech how the Lord revealed himself to her and from
this she believed she must come to New England. When asked how she knew it was the spirit,
she replied: “So to me by an immediate revelation.” As Winthrop reminded the court that his
power in his office was authorized directly by God, Hutchinson warned the court: “You have
power over my body but the Lord Jesus hath power over my body and soul; and assure
yourselves thus much, you do as much as in you lies to put the Lord Jesus Christ from you, and if
you go on in this course you begin, you will bring a curse upon you and your posterity, and the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
At this juncture everyone in the courtroom was cold, hungry and restless. Hutchinson
had been forced to stand the day before until she fell ill and a chair was found for her. The
hearing continued with a chastened and quiet Cotton while Coddington demanding civil liberties
for Hutchinson. Winthrop was quiet for a time but in his private memoirs recorded: “See the
impudent boldness of a proud dame, that Attila-like makes havoc of all that stand in the way of
her ambitious spirit; she had boasted before that her opinions must prevail, neither could she
endure a stop in her way. The court did clearly discern where the fountain was of all our
distempers.” Now he summed up the proceedings and asked for a vote.
The court hath already declared themselves satisfied concerning the things you hear, and
concerning the troublesomeness of her spirit and the danger of her course amongst us,
which is not to be suffered. Therefore if it be the mind of the court that Mrs. Hutchinson
for these things that appear before us is unfit for our society, and if it be the mind of the
court that she shall be banished out of our liberties and imprisoned till she be sent away,
let them hold up their hands.
(All but three did so)
Gov. John Winthrop: Mrs. Hutchinson, the sentence of the court you hear is that you are
banished from out of our jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our society, and are to be
imprisoned till the court shall send you away.

46
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson: I desire to know wherefore I am banished?
Gov. John Winthrop: Say no more. The court knows wherefore and is satisfied.52
Winthrop had opened the trial by stating that Hutchinson was known to cause trouble in
the colony, disrupting the peace of not only the church but his commonwealth. He labeled her a
heretic before she even opened her mouth when he accused her of being prejudiced to the honor
of the church and ministers. He further stated he wanted to “reduce her” so she could be a more
profitable member of the community as if her work as a midwife and healer were of no value
within the colony. He outwardly threatened her that if she remained “obstinate in her course” he
would insure she troubled him (us) no further. However, Hutchinson distinguished between the
ministers who advanced a Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace positions as provided
by Reverend Cotton and her brother-in-law Reverend Wheelwright which was vital to her
defense. She attempted to align herself with learned men, although one had been banished to
prove she was not merely a troublemaker, but one who followed a finite set of doctrine which
others preached, even though she herself reinterpreted it through her revelations from the
Scriptures.
A curious point is how Hutchinson asked about the charges brought against her but was
told to keep her conscience to herself or it would be kept for her. Her teachings to the colony
and her good works as a midwife were dwarfed by the errors Winthrop had previously summed
up against Reverend Wheelwright and the other Hutchinsonians. But the governor did reply that
she transgressed the law of God and state, so perhaps this was his summary; at least before the
court of men. The governor further stated she broke the Fifth Commandment of the Bible in not
52 Carnes, Winship, 65-85.

47
honoring her mother and father. She did not break any commandments in the Bible when she
nursed the families of the colony, only when she showed evidence of her support of Wheelwright
in his sermons. It must be noted that she was unable to sign the petition previously brought
before Winthrop against Wheelwright because she was a woman. But she had in theory
supported it, which was heresy in Winthrop’s eyes.
The governor finally arrived at the question he wanted to ask all along: Why do you keep
meeting in your house with other men and women? Hutchinson pointed out it was not unlawful
to hold a meeting, but Winthrop pressed her on the fact. Hutchinson dodged this skillfully by
quoting the Bible, Titus 2:3-5 that elder women should instruct the younger. This was an
excellent defense for her holding Bible reading groups in her home. Even Winthrop further
probed for answers when he queried that there is a rule for receiving women in her home and did
she know what it was. No doubt, a gathering in childbirth would be less innocent than a meeting
to discuss the scriptures. If Hutchinson had not strayed from the confines of her previous chosen
field of midwifery she would not stand accused of calling other women away from their tasks of
attending men. This is what Winthrop was referring to at the beginning of this particular line of
questioning.
Winthrop stated that she was seducing honest people because her opinions were different
from the word of God and the “simple souls” of Boston wandered away from the ministers and
magistrates as a result of Hutchinson’s words. He continued to pounce on the fact that
Hutchinson caused the colony women and later the men to neglect their families. Though
Hutchinson defended herself by stating that one meeting held only women and another men and
women, it was evident she spoke at both which she made no attempt to conceal.

48
Winthrop continues a tirade of the trouble with Hutchinson since her arrival. From her
shipboard questioning of the minister who came over with her to her agreement on free grace
with Cotton and Vane he spoke of her overwhelming influence on those she spoke with at her
home. Finally Winthrop comes to the Covenant of Grace; the heretical point Winthrop was
heading toward from the beginning of her civil trial.
Winthrop labored on the point that Hutchinson called the ministers out for preaching only
a Covenant of Works and no other way to salvation. Hutchinson stated for the court that what
she said in privacy to another was vastly different from what she might say in front of the
magistrates. Others of the court agreed that Hutchinson was difficult from the beginning of her
arrival and she was slowly turning the colony against the ministers by accusing them of only
teaching a Covenant of Works instead of a Covenant of Grace. Six ministers claimed that
Hutchinson accused them of preaching a Covenant of Works and therefore were not considered
able ministers to interpret the gospel.
That Hutchinson was aware of the type of defense she could mount if she could only get
the men to admit they were bringing her forth on unwritten charges. She continued in the trial as
noted to inquire as to any written notes of the ministers who accused her but no one seemed to
remark upon who had them. Reverend Wilson stated perhaps Mr. Vane took it with him back to
England. Rightfully, Hutchinson wanted her accusers’ statements written under oath and
introduced under oath. The feeling in the court was that the ministers as men of God did not
need to take an oath as to the veracity of their statements. On this point Hutchinson stood firm,
refusing to deny or say that she inferred the ministers were not preaching according to the gospel
since she did not have written statements submitted to her. If she had to stand before the court
and take oaths then the men must do so as well. Hutchinson believed her words were distorted

49
by the ministers when she interpreted the Scriptures in a private manner in her home. Mr.
Leveret and Mr. Coggeshall were called as her witnesses and spoke on her behalf. The Reverend
Cotton was called and did not defend her so well.
Cotton claimed not to recall what was said or done in private conversations for
Hutchinson. Strange behavior for the man who convinced her to bury Mary Dyer’s stillborn
child when she had come to him after the birth for advice and succor. Hutchinson had told
Cotton that the other ministers did not preach a Covenant of Grace as clearly as he did because as
the apostles in the Bible were for a time without the spirit so were the ministers; therefore they
could not teach the Covenant of Grace fully and completely. Cotton continued to backpedal
saying he could not recall if Hutchinson said others were not able ministers of the New
Testament. This forced Hutchinson to fall back on her own revelations which she ably spread
the Covenant of Grace but it was not enough to stay the magistrates’ hands from convicting her.
Hutchinson’s defense regarding the minister’s exaggeration of what she said about them
also minimized the degree to which she spoke in accordance with Reverend Cotton’s beliefs.
The colony had stated it did not prosecute people for their beliefs as long as they kept those
beliefs to themselves. But when ministers pressed her for her opinions, she shared them.
Hutchinson had harsh opinions about the ministers but expressed them privately, never expecting
them to come forth in a court of law.
Hutchinson’s revelations took the form of Scripture and its verses and had they not been
used to form an attack on the ministers she may well have received a mild rebuke from the court.
Winthrop in the trial transcript regarded her revelations as unacceptable. Tried in a court of
Puritans by fellow Puritans Winthrop did not need a legal defense or prosecution for defiance of
English laws when they believed those laws broke the word of God was lawful. For

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