Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/359

Rh HUTCHINSON, Aaron, clergyman, b. in He- bron, Conn., in March, 1722; d. in Pomfret, Vt., 27 Sept., 1800. He was graduated at Yale in 1747, studied for the ministry in Hebron for about three years, and on 6 June, 1750, responded to a call to preach in Grafton, Mass., where he remained for about twenty-two years. In 1776 he moved to Pomfret, Vt., established a- congregation there, and two others in the adjoining towns of Hartford and Woodstock, and for several years performed the pastoral duties for the three congregations. During his fifty years of preaching he lost only two services from illness, and never used a book for conducting his services. Dr. Hutchinson was one of the foremost classical scholars of his time in this country. It was said of him by those who had an intimate knowledge of his attainments, that if the New Testament had been lost he could have reproduced it from memory in the original Greek. Upon one occasion, when he was at Bennington attending the sittings of the council of safety, he met Ethan Allen, who invited him to preach at his house the next Sunday, and at the same time handed to him the manuscript of his " Oracles of Reason," which Allen called his Bible. The Sun- day arrived, a chapter from the Old Testament, specially selected for the occasion, was recited, and the first hymn that was given out began with the verse

This was followed by an orthodox sermon. Allen never forgave Hutchinson for this, and never in- vited him to preach again. Of his sermons only eight were published. The most notable among them was " Mr. Hutchinson's Sermon at Windsor, July 2, 1777, at the Convention for the Forming of the State of Vermont : A well-tempered Self Love a Rule of Conduct towards Others" (Dresden, 1777), which was the first book issued from a print- ing-press in the state of V r ermont. Among the others are " Valour for the Truth " (Boston, 1767) ; " Coming of Christ " (1773) ; and " Meat out of the Eater, or Samson's Riddle Unriddled " (1774).

HUTCHINSON, Anne (Marbury), religious teacher, b. in Lincolnshire, England, about 1590 : d. near Stamford, Conn., in September, 1643. She was a daughter of the Rev. Francis Marbury, and descended from the Blunts, a distinguished family. About 1612 she married William Hutchin- son, of Alford, Lincolnshire, a distant cousin of the celebrated Col. John Hutchinson. Mary, a younger sister of William Hutchinson, married the Rev. John Wheelwright, a Lincolnshire preacher. In 1633 Mrs. Hutchinson's eldest son, Edward, ac- companied the Rev. John Cotton to Massachu- setts, and in the course of the next year he was followed by his father and mother. Mrs. Hutchin- son, says Winthrop, brought with her to Massa- chusetts "two dangerous errors: first, that the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person ; second, that no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification." To these opin- ions Mrs. Hutchinson attached so much impor- tance that she held meetings in Boston and gave lectures expounding them. In this she was ably supported by her brother-in-law, Wheelwright, who came to' Boston in 1636. She violently at- tacked the Massachusetts clergy, all except Wheel- wright and Cotton, whom she declared to be " under a covenant of grace," while the rest were only " under a covenant of works." Great excite- ment was aroused by her preaching, and for a while Boston was divided into two hostile theological camps. Mrs. Hutchinson went far toward win- ning to her cause not only the powerful preacher, Cotton, but also the youthful and enthusiastic governor, Harry Vane. The doughty Capt. Under- bill was one of her converts. The" agitation was fraught with danger to the infant colony. On the eve of the Pequot war a company of militia was found unwilling to march, because its chaplain was held to be "under a covenant of works." When things had come to such a pass, it was thought to be high time to put Mrs. Hutchinson down. She was tried for heresy and sedition, and banished from Massachusetts, along with Wheel- wright and several others of her followers, who were known as " Antinomians." Wheelwright and others went northward and founded the towns of Exeter and Dover, in New Hampshire. Mrs. Hut- chinson, with her husband and fifteen children, bought for forty fathoms of wampum the island of Aquidneck from the Narragansett Indians, and founded the town of Portsmouth, while Codding- ton, one of her followers, founded Newport. After the death of her husband in 1642, Mrs. Hutchinson left Rhode Island, and settled upon some land to the west of Stamford, supposed to be within the territory of the New Netherlands. There in the following year she was cruelly murdered by Indians, together with most of her children and servants, sixteen victims in all. Her child, Susanna, ten years old, was carried into captivity by the Indians, but four years afterward was ransomed, and in 1651 married John Cole, of Rhode Island. — Ed- ward, eldest son of William and Anne Hutchin- son, b. in Alford, Lincolnshire, 28 May, 1613 ; d. in Brookfield, Mass.. 2 Aug., 1675, left" Boston in 1638, at the time of his mother's banishment, but returned some years afterward, and from 1658 till 1675 was deputy to the general court. He was a captain of militia, and in July, 1675. after the disastrous beginning of Philip's war, was sent to Brookfield to negotiate with the Nipmuck Indians. The treacherous savages appointed a place for a rendezvous, but lay in ambush for Hutchinson as he approached, and slew him, with several of his company. — Thomas, royal governor of Massachusetts, b. in Boston, 9 Sept., 1711 ; d. in Brompton. near London, 3 June. 1780, was a great-grandson of Capt. Edward Hutchinson, just mentioned. His father, a merchant in high standing, and at one time quite wealthy, was for twenty-six years a mem- ber of the council of assistants. At five years of age Thomas was admitted to the North grammar-school, and in 1727 he was graduated at Harvard. While in college he began carrying on a little trade by sending ventures in his father's vessels. He was not very attentive to his studies at college, but afterward acquired a thorough knowledge of Latin and French. From early childhood he took great delight in reading history. After leaving college he spent four years in his father's counting-house, and showed himself extremely methodical, exact, and business-like in his habits. On 16 May, 1734, he married Margaret Sanford. a beautiful girl of seventeen, with whom he lived happily until her death in 1753. He never married again. In 1737 he was chosen a selectman for the town of Boston, and about a month afterward was elected representative to the general court. The people were there greatly agitated over the question of paper money. Bills of credit had been issued since the beginning of the century, partly to meet the expenses of the French and Indian wars on the northern frontier. In all the New England states the depreciation of the paper wrought serious disturb-