June 27,2024 – The Portsmouth Historical Society hosted a talk, Anne Hutchinson: The Woman who co-founded Rhode Island and Told the Boston Puritans they were going to Hell” on Thursday, June 27th, 6:30 PM at the museum.
In 17th Century Boston, a woman dared to challenge the ruling theocracy by preaching first to women, then to an increasingly large mixed audience, that the Puritans were mistaken in their theology. Expelled from the colony with deep snow still on the ground, she walked while 8 months pregnant to Providence and then traveled by boat to Portsmouth, before being massacred by Native Americans she had tried to befriend. No traces remain of the settlement Anne and her family originated in 1638, but despite her early death she and her descendants were a major influence on Portsmouth and the colony that became Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
In 17th Century Boston, a woman dared to challenge the ruling theocracy by preaching first to women, then to an increasingly large mixed audience, that the Puritans were mistaken in their theology. Expelled from the colony with deep snow still on the ground, she walked while 8 months pregnant to Providence and then traveled by boat to Portsmouth, before being massacred by Native Americans she had tried to befriend. No traces remain of the settlement Anne and her family originated in 1638, but despite her early death she and her descendants were a major influence on Portsmouth and the colony that became Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
Presented byTim Phelps, a Portsmouth native and Hutchinson relative who worked for many years as a journalist in the Middle East and Washington, he retired several years ago to the farm he grew up on Middle Road and is doing research on a book about Newport slave traders.
