In this virtual program, Dr. Charlotte Carrington-Farmer focuses on Mary and Roger Williams, the influential seventeenth-century couple whose lives left an indelible impact on New England. Roger Williams, an English immigrant to New England, was famously banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635 for his “new and dangerous opinions” on religious freedom, the separation of church and state, and Indigenous land rights. Dr. Carrington-Farmer shines new light on Mary and Roger Williams in her recent essay “More than Roger’s Wife” in the New England Quarterly (2024) and her anthology, Roger Williams and His World (2025). Click here for a 58-minute video recording of her April 17, 2025 presentation by the Congregational Library.

The map of the Smithfield district of London shows one of its famous roles where, for many years, religious heretics had been burnt alive. This long and bloody history had an impact on the young Roger Williams. He also attended St. Sepulcher-without-Newgate nearby where you can see Dr. Carrington-Farmer holding a little picture of Roger Williams’ statue in front of the church as it is today taken when she brought students to visit there several years ago.

Sir Edward Coke paved Williams’ way to study at both the Charterhouse School and eventually at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge where only his name appears in their matriculation records.

Following his banishment from Salem in 1636, Williams settled the town of Providence with the permission of the Narragansett Sachems, creating a colony that was arguably the freest in the western world. The traditional narrative centers Roger Williams as a lone “hero” in the founding of Providence, but none of it would have been possible without his wife, Mary Williams. For years at a time, Mary was the head of the Williams family, and she played a central role in colony affairs. Part of the challenge of telling Mary’s story in her own words is that she left behind so few of them, especially compared to her husband.