American Jezebel (35 page)

From here in Alford, one can walk west on a path across the fields and up into the Wolds. Rabbits and pheasants dart across the trail. A mile or so along, not far from the Norman ruin of Saint James’s at Rigsby, with its small belfry, one reaches Rigsby Wood, where Anne Hutchinson often took her children. When I was there it was almost May, and the bluebells were beginning to bloom. In this place, at least, time stands still.

¹
A. B. Harvard, 1675, minister of First Church in Cambridge, and acting president of Harvard College, 16821692

²
Great-granddaughter of the Reverend John Cotton

³
Unitarian minister and abolitionist

Many people have helped in the research and writing of this book. My wonderful editor, Renée Sedliar, offered more enthusiasm and support than I could have imagined. Laureen Rowland and Gary Morris of the David Black Agency generously shared their knowledge and talents. My thoughtful first readers were Alison McGandy, Leslie Brunetta, Edward Furgol, Bradford Wright, Glenn Gibbs, and of course my constant first reader, my husband, David. Allison Christiansen, my research assistant, skillfully addressed queries about life in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century England and America.

Bradford Wright, my former American History teacher, started me on this book in more ways than one. Learning last year of the project, he appeared at my doorstep bearing shopping bags full of books about colonial New England, noted American women, religion in early America, and Anne Hutchinson’s trials. Since then Brad has dropped by on occasion to leave a relevant historical article, like an Easter surprise, at my front door. Other former teachers to whom I am indebted are Donald W. Thomas, Jonathan Arac, A. Walton Litz, Thomas Kinsella, and Sacvan Bercovitch.

My friend Edward Furgol, a historian and curator, had the patience and knowledge to answer countless questions about English and American history and theology. Ed accompanied me to the seventeenth-century archeological site at Saint Mary’s City, Maryland, and provided sage advice about what to see in England. As an early reader of the manuscript, he uncovered several anachronisms that only a historian could. I am also grateful to Ed’s family for their hospitality.

Martha Karasek, another longtime friend, invited me into her weekly Scripture study group just as I began this book. I enjoyed not only participating in the group but also experiencing firsthand the sort of meetings that Anne Hutchinson conducted in her Boston parlor in
the 1630s. I am grateful to Marti, Lois Showalter, Christine Fusaro, Troy Catterson, Dale Karasek, Harriet Sutfin, and others in the group, which is sponsored by the Ruggles Baptist Church of Boston. In the longer run, my understanding of faith and grace has been deepened by the Reverend Jack Ahern, Andrew Kelly, the Reverend Charles Weiser, Olivia C. LaPlante, the Reverend James Nero, Joseph A. LaPlante, Emer bean Í Chuív, the Reverend Shan O Cuív, and Mary B. Page.

David D. Hall, the living expert on the political and religious controversy that swirled around Anne Hutchinson, generously met with me in his office at Harvard Divinity School, where he is the John Bartlett Professor of New England Church History, and answered further questions by e-mail. He referred me to Michael Winship’s remarkable book,
Making Heretics: Militant Protestantism and Free Grace in Massachusetts, 1636–1641
(2002). Besides Winship’s and Hall’s books (especially the essential source book, edited by Hall,
The Antinomian Controversy
), the books I found most helpful were Selma Williams’s 1980 biography,
Divine Rebel: The Life of Anne Marbury Hutchinson;
Mary Beth Norton’s
Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society
(1996); and Norman Pettit’s 1989 study,
The Heart Prepared: Grace and Conversion in Puritan Spiritual Life
.

Many archivists, librarians, historians, curators, and others have assisted in my search for new information about Anne Hutchinson and all the sites of her life. In Lincolnshire, Dr. Mike Rogers, curator of the Lincolnshire Archives, generously assisted in unearthing and actually reading historic documents pertaining to the Hutchinson and Marbury families. The local historian and Blue Badge guide Jean Howard drove me all over Alford and environs, showing me the locked schoolroom in which Anne’s father taught, the inside of the manor house that was erected in Anne’s day, the plague stone now in a private garden, and the clearing where the bluebells bloom in Rigsby Wood each May. Over the next few months Jean answered numerous questions by e-mail and fact-checked portions of the manuscript. The historian and geologist David Robinson, in Louth; the church historian Rosemary Watts, in Lincoln; and the tour guide Barbara Walker, in Lincoln, also helped answer questions about life in Lincolnshire at the turn of the seventeenth century.

In London, I was grateful for the assistance of Hazel Forsyth of the Museum of London, Valerie Austin of the Tourist Board, the warden of
Saint Olave’s church, Concetto Marletta, Ally Flanigan, Ariel Palmieri, and several people at the Guildhall Library, including Lynne MacNab, Matthew Payne, and Lloyd Child.

In Massachusetts, I am grateful to Betsy Lowenstein, chief of special collections at the Massachusetts State Library; Elizabeth Bouvier and Martha Clark, curators of the Massachusetts State Archives; Nicholas Graham, librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society; Stephen Nonack, of the Boston Athenaeum; and Kristen Weiss, of the Peabody Essex Museum. I wish also to thank the librarian Mary Bergman, at a local public library, who secured various rare books that I requested, sometimes repeatedly. Other scholars who assisted in my search were Lad Tobin and Lynn Johnson, of Boston College; Kevin McLaughlin and James Egan, of Brown University; and Barbara Rimkunas, curator of the Exeter (New Hampshire) Historical Society. At the site of the Hutchinsons’ Boston home, I was assisted by two preservationists: Stanley Smith, Executive Director, and Jeffrey T. Gonyeau, Project Manager, both of Historic Boston Inc., which owns the site.

In Portsmouth, Rhode Island, I am grateful to retired police chief John C. Pierce Sr., who in the 1950s began unearthing the archeological remains of the Hutchinsons’ homestead there. He walked me around the neighborhood and told me how to kayak to the location of the midden. James Garman, a local historian, generously shared with me his early records and maps of the settlement. Robert Pimentel (of the Portsmouth Public Library), Isabella Casselman (of the Portsmouth Historical Society), Laura Mello, Gail Gardiner, Maureen Cain, and Robert Hamilton (of Hamilton Printing Company) also offered assistance, as did Valerie Debrule, of Newport, Rhode Island, head of the Anne Hutchinson Memorial Committee. At the Sakonnet Boathouse in Tiverton, Rhode Island, which rents kayaks, Karla Moran gave me excellent advice about finding the former Hutchinson land. I wish also to thank Robert Driscoll, Portsmouth’s Town Manager, for his guidance.

In the Bronx, New York, I am indebted to Lesli Rosier, who had the spunk to say to a stranger who was looking for the Split Rock, “Why don’t I saddle you up a horse and take you there?” I also wish to thank the staff of the Pelham Bit Stable/Bronx Equestrian Center, on Shore Road. Kenneth West and Kate Whitney Bukofzer, volunteers for the
Appalachian Mountain Club of New York, provided maps and information about the walking trails in the parkland around the Split Rock.

At Harper San Francisco, I am grateful to Laura Beers, who designed the handsome cover; book designer Joseph Rutt; copy editor Priscilla Stuckey; production editor Lisa Zuniga; proofreader Kimberly McCutcheon; and Jennifer Johns and Roger Freet, who handled publicity and marketing. I wish to thank Jonathan Wyss and Kelly Sandefer, of Topaz Maps in Watertown, Massachusetts, for their skill and care in making the maps, several of which I would have liked to have had on hand while researching the book.

Friends and relatives provided invaluable help. Jane Larsen offered, as always, emotional support and editorial advice. Virginia LaPlante helped with editing and childcare. Phoebe Hoss lent my family her New York City apartment, from which we explored Anne Hutchinson’s Bronx home. Angel Garcia, Wendy Brennan, Luzmari Garcia Sanchez, Elaine Soffer, Lily and Johanna Kass, and Katharine Emerson Hoss entertained us in New York. The Reverend Brian Clary solved puzzles concerning ecclesiastical vestments. Carl Dreyfus provided an insider’s tour of Roxbury, Massachusetts. Tony Dreyfus made a translation from the Latin. I wish to thank Sarah Wernick for introducing me to Laureen Rowland, and C. Michael Curtis for his longtime encouragement. Among the many people who have comforted and supported my family as I wrote, I am particularly grateful to Andrea and Danielle Mazandi, Liza Hirsch, Nelly Langlais, David Weinstein, Ginny Carroll, and Mary Sheldon.

As for the five people to whom the book is dedicated, I am grateful to David for his generous encouragement, thoughtful advice, and unending support, and to Rose, Clara, Charlotte, and Philip for their excitement and, especially, their patience. I could not have written it without them.

A
RCHIVAL
C
OLLECTIONS

Bostonian Society, Boston, Massachusetts

Deed given by Edward Hutchinson (Jr.) to William Trenton of land formerly the property of John Winthrop. Boston, MA. March 1, 1657.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Archives, Boston, Massachusetts

Charter of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, 1629 [SC1–23x].

Correspondence of Governor Thomas Hutchinson, Vols. 26, 27.

Court records of Massachusetts Bay Colony, Vols. 1–5 [CTO–1700x].

Massachusetts Archives Collection, 1629–1799 [SC1–45x]. Listings under Hutchinson, Anne; Hutchinson, Edward; Hutchinson, Francis; Hutchinson, Richard; Hutchinson, Samuel; Hutchinson, William; and Savage, Thomas.

Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1629–86.

General Records Office, Guildhall, London, England

Early maps of London, circa 1553–1667.

Parish records for the City of London, 1605–12.

Greater London Record Office, County Hall, London, England

Marbury, Francis. Last will and testament. January 30, 1610 (1611).

Historic Boston, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts

Historic Structures Report for the Old Corner Bookstore Buildings, Boston, Massachusetts. Turk Tracy & Larry Architects, LLC. May 2000.

Lincolnshire Archives, Lincoln, England

Alford faculties, 1606–1868 [TER BUNDLE/ALFORD].

Associated Architectural Societies’ Reports and Papers, Vol. 34, part 1, pp. 28–29, describing contents of Alford church, 1548 [FUR 1/26].

Diocesan property, seventeenth-century listing [FAC 9/95].

Glebe terrier for Alford, 1601 [TER/3/321].

Hutchinson, Edward (Sr.). Inventory, February 18, 1632.

The Parish Registers of Alford & Rigsby in the County of Lincoln
. Vol. I,
1583–1653
.

Quitclaim of interest involving Edward Hutchinson (Sr.) and his wife, Sarah, sealed at Boston, MA. 1635 [MON/1/IV/7/7].

Ringe, Sharon H. “Anne Hutchinson’s Challenge to Liberal Theology.” N.d. [Anne Hutchinson file, MCD 1486].

Winter, Sister Miriam Therese. “Anne Hutchinson and Spirituality.” N.d. [Anne Hutchinson file, MCD 1486].

Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts

Gay, F. L. “Notes and Documents on Francis Marbury,” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, Vol. 48, 1915: 280–91.

Winthrop, John. “A Short Story of the rise, reign, and ruin of the Antinomians, Familists & Libertines, that infected the churches of New England.” London, 1644.

The Winthrop Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, Vol. 3, 1631–7; Vol. 4, 1638–44.

Portsmouth Public Library, Portsmouth, Rhode Island

West, Edward H. “The Lands of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and a Glimpse of Its People.”
Rhode Island Historical Society Collections
. Vol. 25, no. 2. July 1932.

———. Original Land Grants of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Compiled in 1932.

———. “Portsmouth, Rhode Island Before 1800.”
The Records of Rhode Island
. Providence, RI, 1932.

———. “The Records of Rhode Island.” Speech to the National Genealogical Society, Washington, DC. March 19, 1938.

———. “The Signing of the Compact and the Purchase of Aquidneck.”
Rhode Island Historical Society Collections
. Vol. 32, no. 3. July 1939.

Westchester County Historical Society, White Plains, New York

Hufeland, Otto. “Anne Hutchinson’s Refuge in the Wilderness.” Anne Hutchinson and Other Papers.
Publications of the Westchester County Historical Society.
Vol. 7. 1929.

A
RTICLES AND
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HAPTERS

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New England Quarterly
67 (December 1984): 531–66.

Bush, Sargent, Jr. “John Wheelwright’s Forgotten
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The Last Word on the Antinomian Controversy.
New England Quarterly
64 (March 1991): 22–45.

Caldwell, Patricia. “The Antinomian Language Controversy.”
Harvard Theological Review
69 (1976): 345–67.

Cooper, James F. “Anne Hutchinson and the ‘Lay Rebellion’ Against the Clergy.”
New England Quarterly
61 (September 1988): 381–97.

———. “Higher Law, Free Consent, Limited Authority: Church Government and Political Culture in Seventeenth Century Massachusetts.”
New England Quarterly
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Eells, James. “An address in recognition of six tablets erected to do honor to Governor Henry Vane, Mistress Anne Hutchinson, Governor John Leverett, Governor Simon Bradstreet, Mistress Anne Bradstreet, and Governor John Endicott.” Speech given in the First Church in Boston. December 21, 1904.

Garman, James E. “Anne Hutchinson and the Founding of Aquidneck Island.” Unpublished article. 1996.

Ginger, Dawn. “Anne Hutchinson.”
Lincolnshire Life
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Gomes, Rev. Peter J. “Vita.”
Harvard Magazine.
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New England Quarterly
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Providence Journal
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Tobin, Lad. “A Radically Different Voice: Gender and Language in the Trials of Anne Hutchinson.”
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———.
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———.
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———.
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