The story of Puritan dissident Anne Hutchinson, her contributions, and what they mean for us now were told at the Bosworth Lecture on November 21, 2024 at the First Congregational Church in Bristol, RI. Eve LaPlante, author of American Jezebel, the definitive biography of Hutchinson, discussed her research for the book, including visits to all the sites of Hutchinson’s life. She recounted her subject’s dramatic courtroom battles in colonial Boston, her banishment and exile in what is now Portsmouth, RI, and her path to becoming the only woman ever to found an American colony. Click here for a one-hour video of LaPlante’s talk.

(Above) After describing her childhood in which her Aunt Charlotte first told her she was related to Hutchinson. LaPlante later went on to say that “in a period when a woman could not vote, hold public office, or teach outside the home, Hutchinson showed remarkable political power, hosting women at her house, providing commentary on recent sermons, prompting Governor John Winthrop to deride her as ‘this American Jezebel’ and have her removed to Rhode Island.”

LaPlante then described her visits to Hutchinson’s childhood home near St. Wilfrid’s Church in Alford England, where her father preached, and St. Botolph’s Church in Boston, Lanconshire, where LaPlante learned more about Rev. John Cotton, who heavily influenced Hutchinson’s thinking.

LaPlante concluded her presentation by describing a trip she took with her children by kayak to the island in the Great Cove of Northern Portsmouth, RI, to see the location of Hutchinson’s home in 1638. Hutchinson’s final move was to the Bronx in New York where she and six of her children were slain in a war between the Dutch and Lanape Natives near today’s Hutchinson River Parkway where the hiding place of one of her children can be seen today.