Hutchinson, Anne

Hutchinson, Anne an American religious enthusiast, and founder of a party of Antinomians (q.v.) in the New England colony, emigrated from Lincolnshire, England, to Boston in 1636. She claimed to be a medium of divine revelation, and, being "a woman of admirable understanding, and profitable and sober carriage, she won a powerful party in the country, and her enemies could never speak of her without acknowledging her eloquence and ability." She held that the Holy Spirit dwells in every believer, and that the revelation of the Spirit is superior to the ministry of the word. As her doctrines affected not only the religious, but also the political professions of the people, great controversies ensued; a synod was finally called, in which her teachings were condemned, and she and her associate leaders were banished from the colony. Anne and her friends now obtained from the chief of the Narragansetts permission to reside in Rhode Island. Here "they set up a community on the highly commendable principle that no one was to be 'accounted a delinquent for doctrine."'After the decease of her husband (who shared her opinions), she removed to a Dutch settlement in the colony of New York. In 1643, she and her whole family of fifteen persons were taken prisoners by the Indians, and all but one daughter barbarously murdered. See Bancroft, Hist. of the United States, 1, 388 sq.; Chambers, Cyclop. 5, 472; American Presb. Rev. 1860, p. 225. (J. H. W.)