Anne Hutchinson - Boston

Boston

Will Hutchinson had been very successful in his mercantile business back in Alford, and brought a considerable estate with him to New England. The Hutchinson family arrived in Boston in the late summer of 1634, and purchased a half acre lot on the Shawmut Peninsula, now downtown Boston. Here they had a house built, one of the largest on the peninsula, with a timber frame, a central chimney, glass windows, and at least two stories. The house stood until October 1711, when it was consumed in the great fire of Boston, after which the Old Corner Bookstore was built on the exact location. They soon acquired 600 acres of land at Mount Wollaston, 10 miles (16 km) south of Boston in the area that later became Quincy, and also were granted Taylor's Island in the Boston harbour, where the Hutchinsons grazed their sheep. Once established, William Hutchinson continued to prosper in the cloth trade, made land purchases and investments, and became a town selectman and deputy to the General Court. Anne Hutchinson likewise fit into her new home with ease, and devoted many hours to those who were ill or in need. She became an active midwife and took on the role of spiritual adviser to other women. Magistrate John Winthrop noted that "her ordinary talke was about the things of the Kingdome of God," and "her usuall conversation was in the way of righteousness and kindnesse." Hutchinson particularly tended to those women in childbirth, which was a "grave, protracted, and heavily attended event" among women; as many as 20 percent of women died from it.