Susanna Winslow

Edward married Elizabeth Hutchinson on 8 Feb 1667/68 in Boston, MA. Elizabeth (daughter of Edward Hutchinson and Catherine Hamby) was born about 1639 in Alford, Lincoln, England; died on 16 Sep 1718 in Boston, MA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

John married Mary Chilton on 22 May 1627 in Plymouth, MA. Mary (daughter of James Chilton and Susanna Furner) was born about 1607 in Sandwich, Kent, England; died before 1 May 1679 in Boston, MA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Mary's parents, James Chilton and Susanna, were married before 1587.
James was the son of Lionel Chilton, and Susanna may have been the daughter of Francis and Isabelle Furner.

In the early 1600s, many English men and women began to question some of the teachings of the Church of England that had been founded by Henry VIII in the previous century. Some of these individuals remained members of the church but tried to "purify" it from within, and were called "Puritans." One group of Puritans founded MA Bay Colony at Boston in 1630.

More radical individuals believed that the church was too contaminated by "error" to be salvaged, and these individuals separated from the church. The so-called "Separatists" were persecuted by the monarchy and to a lesser degree by the Puritans, and a few congregations of Separatists fled to Holland, where the Separatists' religious views were tolerated. Although James Chilton in the past was not thought to be a Separatist, later research discovered a record of James and his daughter Mary being attacked by a group of rock throwing boys in Leyden, Holland in 1619, and it therefore appears that he was a member of that group.

Although the Separatists were able to worship freely in Holland, they found that it was very difficult to make a living there. (Most of the Separatists had been farmers in England, and they had to learn new but lower paying job skills in urban Holland.) The Separatists also discovered that their children were slowly slipping away from the Separatist faith in easy going Holland, and in fact were becoming more Dutch than English.

Accordingly, the Separatists in Leyden entered into an agreement with a group of "Adventurers" (venture capitalists, really) in England pursuant to which the Adventurers would pay for the passage of some of the Separatists to America in return for a certain percentage of the fruits of their labors. The Adventurers also financed the passage of a number of passengers who came to America for purely economic reasons and who were called the "Strangers" by the Separatists. James, Susanna and Mary Chilton came to America with the first group of Separatists on the Mayflower in 1620. Congregationalist churches evolved from the Separatist congregations that came to America.

Either by accident or design, the Mayflower did not land as intended at Jamestown, VA Colony but instead arrived at Cape Cod in November. James Chilton was one of the oldest of the Mayflower passengers, and he died on 18 December 1620 while the Mayflower was still in Provincetown harbor and shortly after he signed the Mayflower Compact. There is no record regarding whether he was buried on land or at sea.

The Mayflower crossed Cape Cod Bay, and the passengers founded a new colony at Plymouth. According to tradition, Mary Chilton raced John Alden to the front of the launch bringing the Mayflower passengers to the shore and was the first woman to set foot on Plymouth Rock. The painting "The Landing of the Pilgrims" by Henry Bacon and exhibited in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, MA reflects this tradition.

During the first winter in America, almost half of the Mayflower passengers died during the First Sickness, including Susanna Furner on 21 January 1620/1621 (Old Style calendar). The thirteen year old Mary Chilton was left an orphan, and based upon a later division of land it is believed that she lived for the next few years with the family of either John Alden or Myles Standish.

Mary's husband John Winslow came to Plymouth on the Fortune in 1621. John was the brother of Edward Winslow, a Mayflower passenger and a Governor of Plymouth Colony.

Mary and John moved to Boston about 1655, where John became a successful merchant and shipowner. John died after 12 March 1673. Mary left the only will of a female passenger on the Mayflower, which is preserved at the Suffolk County Registry of Probate in Boston.

They were buried in King's Chapel Burying Ground in Boston, where their tombstones still stand.

Sources: Stratton and MF Chilton

Edward married Catherine Hamby about 1636 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. Catherine (daughter of Robert Hamby and Elizabeth Arnold) died about 1650. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Edward married Madaline Ollyver. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

BORN: About 1556 (he stated he was 63 in a 28 April 1619 Leyden document), probably Canterbury, Kent, England, son of Lyonell
Chilton and his second wife (her name is unknown).
DIED: 8 December 1620, on board the Mayflower
MARRIED: probably about 1586 based on baptism of first known child. Her name is currently unknown. The claim by John Hunt in
The American Genealogist 38:244-245 that his wife was possibly Susanna Furner has been recently disproven on the basis of the
discovery of Susanna Furner's baptism record, which indicates she was far too young (only 12) to be married and having children in
1586. See Michael Paulick, "The 1609-1610 Excommunications of Mrs. Chilton and Moyses Fletcher--Mayflower Pilgrims" in the
New England Historical and Genealogical Register, volume 153 (October 1999) for further information on this.

James Chilton, a tailor by trade, was the oldest Mayflower passenger, and one of the first to die after reaching the New World. He was
born and raised in Canterbury, Kent, England and around 1600 moved to Sandwich, Kent.

By July 1615, and probably as early as 1610, James, his wife, and at least some of his children were living in Leyden, Holland. On 28
April 1619, James Chilton and his daughter Isabella were caught in an anti-Armenian riot and James was hit in the head with a large stone
and required the services of the town surgeon, Jacob Hey.

He came on the Mayflower with his wife and daughter Mary. James and his wife died the first winter, leaving their daughter orphaned;
she probably joined with the household of Myles Standish.

Mary Chilton came on the Mayflower at the young age of 13, and popular legend gives her the distinction of being the first female to
step ashore at Plymouth. She married John Winslow, who came in the ship Fortune in 1621, and was the brother of Mayflower
passengers Edward Winslow and Gilbert Winslow.

James married Susanna Furner before 1587. Susanna was born in UNKNOWN in Unknown; died in 1621 in Plymouth, MA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

William married Anne Marbury about 1612 in Alford, Lincoln, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Anne MARBURY, my 10th great grand aunt (by marriage), was the daughter of Reverend Francis MARBURY and Bridget DRYDEN, and was born in 1591 in Alford, Lincolnshire, England. She married William HUTCHINSON, a merchant, 9 Aug 1612 in London. She and her husband came to America in 1634 with Reverend John Lothrop's group on the ship "Griffin" and settled in Boston.

No stranger to religion, Anne grew up during the persecution of the Catholics and Separatists under Elizabeth and James I. Her father, Rev. Francis Marbury, had been imprisoned twice for preaching against the incompetence of English ministers, though he later became the rector of St. Martin's Vintry, London, rector of St. Pancras, Soper Lane, and finally rector of St. Margaret's, New Fish Street. He was holding two of these offices simultaneously when he died in 1611.

Anne began her involvment with religion quite innocently, using her intelligence to interpret the only book available to her - the Bible. She had followed her beloved minister, Reverend John Cotton, whose removal to New England a year earlier had been "a great trouble to me...I could not be at rest but I must come hither."

The religious climate in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was oppresive. As the colony took hold, ministers emphasized everyone's pious duty to pray, fast and discipline oneself. Noting that the male members of Boston's church met regularly after sermons to discuss the Bible, she started to hold similar meetings for women in her own home. At first the women discussed the previous Sunday's sermons, but before long Anne began telling them of her own beliefs which differed from those of the Boston ministers. She attracted hundreds of women - aided by her reputation as a skilled midwife - and men, too, soon joined her discussion group.

Brilliant, articulate and learned in the Bible and theology, she denied that conformity with the religious laws were a sign of godliness and inisted that true godliness came from inner experience of the Holy Spirit. Anne further exacerbated the local elders by claiming that only two Boston ministers were "elect" or saved, John Cotton and her brother-in-law, John Wheelwright.

Anne's weekly meetings took on a new importance. As many as eighty people filled her house, including "some of the magistrates, some gentlemen, some scholars and men of learning." Among them was Sir Henry Vane, who became governor of the colony in 1636. When Anne, with the aid of Governor Vane and John Cotton, attemped to have her brother-in-law, John Wheelwright installed as minister of the Boston chuch, most of the congregation supported her. But the pastor of the church, Reverend John Wilson, gave a speech on the "inevitable dangers of separation" caused by the religious dissensions, and joined with John Winthrop in opposing her.

What started as a religious point of difference grew into a schism that threatened the political stability of the colony. To her opponents, questioning the church meant questioning the State. Anne's ideas were branded as the heresy of "Antinomianism" (a belief that Christians are not bound by moral law), and her followers became known as "Antinomians". Intended to be derogatory, the term was erroneously applied to Anne's followers, who did not believe that the inner Holy Spirit released them from obligation to moral law.

The colonial government moved to discipline her and her numerous followers in Boston. In May 1637, Vane lost the governorship to John Winthrop. To prevent new Antinomians from settling, he imposed a restriction on immigrants, among them Anne's brother and several of her friends. In August, eighty-two "heresies" committed by the Antinomians were read at a synod, and a ban was placed on all private meetings.

But Wheelwright continued to preach and Anne now held her meetings twice a week. In November, Winthop and his supporters filed charges against Anne and Wheelwright, who were then put on trial for heresy before a meeting of the General Court. Intending to prove that Anne's behavior was immoral, Winthrop described her meetings as "a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God, nor fitting for your sex," and accused her of breaking the Fifth Commandment by not honoring her father and mother (in this case, the magistrates of the colony). At this trial, she parried all questions so well that Edmund S. Morgan, a biographer of Gov. John Winthrop, was led to comment that Anne Hutchinson was the governor's "intellectual superior in everything except political judgment; in everything except the sense of what was possible in this world." Answering deftly, Anne came close to clearing herself of all charges. But suddenly, she mentioned that she had had several revelations. The Lord revealed himself to her, she said, "upon a Throne of Justice, and all the world appearing before him, and though I must come to New England, yet I must not fear nor be dismaied," she said. "Therefore, take heed. For I know that for this that you goe about to doe unto me," she threatened, "God will ruin you and your posterity, and this whole State." Winthop immediately replied, "I am
persuaded that the revelation she brings forth is delusion." The court voted to banish her from the colony, "as being a woman not fit for our society".

Wheelwright was exiled and shortly left for New Hamphire while Anne was put under house arrest for the winter to await a church trial in the spring. On March 15, 1638, Anne was brought to trial before the elders of the church of Boston. When her sons and sons-in-law tried to speak on her behalf, John Cotton cautioned them against "hindering" the work of God in healing her soul. To the women of the congretation he said to be careful in listening to her, "for you see
she is but a woman and many unsound and dayngerous Principles are held by her."

Once her friend, Cotton now turned full force against her, attacking her meetings as a "promiscuous and filthie coming together of men and women without
Distinction of Relation of Marriage," and accused her of believing in free love. "Your opinions frett like a Gangrene and spread like a Leprosie, and will eate
out the very Bowells of Religion."

Then Reverend Wilson, whom she had once tried to evict from the Boston church, delivered her excommunication. "I doe cast you out and in the name of
Christ I doe deliver you up to Satan, that you may learne no more to blaspheme, to seduce, and to lye."

"The Lord judgeth not as man judgeth," she retored. "Better to be cast out of the church than to deny Christ."

Banished from Boston, Anne Hutchinson with her husband, children and 60 followers settled in the land of Narragansetts, from whose chief, Miantonomah,
they purchased the island of Aquidneck (Peaceable Island), now part of Rhode Island. In March, 1638 they founded the town of Pocasset, the Indian name for
that locality; the name "Portsmouth" was given to the settlement in 1639. Here they established that colony's first civil government.

After William's death in 1642, Anne took her children, except for five of the eldest, to the Dutch colony in New York. But a few months later, fifteen Dutchmen
were killed in a battle between Mohegans and the Narragansetts. In August, 1643 the Mohegans raided the Hutchinson house and slaughtered Anne and five of
her youngest children. Only one young daughter who was present, Susanna who was taken captive, survived. (Note: Many older sources insist that ALL of
Anne's children except her daughter, Susanna were killed with her. This is simply not true. Sons Edward, Richard and Samuel were not present, nor were her
eldest daughters, Faith and Bridget, most of whom left numerous descendants.)

The site of Anne's house and the scene of her murder is in what is now Pelham Bay Park, within the limits of New York City, less than a dozen miles from the
City Hall. Not far from it, beside the road, is a large glacial boulder, popularly called Split Rock from its division into two parts, probably by the action of
frost aided by the growth of a large tree, the stump of which separates the parts. The line of vision of one looking through the split towards Hutchinson River
at the foot of the hill will very nearly cross the site of the house. In 1911 a bronze tablet to the memory of Mrs. Hutchinson was placed on Split Rock by the
Society of Colonial Dames of the State of New York, who recognized that the resting place of this most noted woman of her time was well worthy of such a
memorial. The tablet bears the following inscription:

ANNE HUTCHINSON
Banished From the Massachusetts Bay Colony
In 1638
Because of Her Devotion to Religious Liberty
This Courageous Woman
Sought Freedom From Persecution
In New Netherland
Near This Rock in 1643 She and Her Household
Were Massacred by Indians
This Tablet is placed here by the
Colonial Dames of the State of New York
Anno Domini MCMXI
Virtutes Majorum Fillae Conservant

Some twentieth century observers credit Anne Hutchinson with being the first American woman to lead the public fight for religious diversity and female quality. In his 1971 biography, Eleanor and Franklin, Joseph P. Lash reported that Eleanor Roosevelt began her list of America's greatest women with Anne Hutchinson. Anne did indeed use her considerable influence as a woman to test the Massachusetts Bay Colony's religious tolerance which, ironically, had been the reason for the settlement.

Robert married Elizabeth Arnold. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]