Edward Hutchinson

     Edward Hutchinson was baptized on 28 May 1613 at Alford, Lincolnshire, England.² He was the son of William Hutchinson and Anne Marbury.^1,2 Edward Hutchinson married Katherine Hamby, daughter of Robert Hamby and Elizabeth Arnold, on 19 October 1636.² Edward Hutchinson was buried on 20 August 1645 at Spring Hill Cemetery, Marlborough, Middlesex Co, Massachusetts.² He died on 19 August 1675 at Massachusetts at age 62; He was killed by Indians during the King Philip's War.²
     Hutchinson was active in the militia of the colony. In 1638, he was one of the charter member of the Military Company of Massachusetts (today known as the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts) and in 1641 he was a junior sergeant in the company. In 1654 he was elected and commissioned as the lieutenant (second in command) of the Company and, three years later, in 1657, he was elected as the captain (commanding officer) of the Company.
As a captain in the militia, Hutchinson was called to active service during King Philip's War in 1675, and was given command of a company which fell under the overall command of his brother-in-law, Major Thomas Savage. On 28 July 1675 he co-lead an expedition with Captain Thomas Wheeler and a small company of men to negotiate a peace settlement with the Nipmuc sachem Muttawmp. The natives evaded the party, however, until on the 2nd of August, near the town of Brookfield, the captains and their men were ambushed in what became known as Wheeler's Surprise. Hutchinson was seriously wounded during the engagement, and Wheeler was also wounded, but the survivors managed to get to a garrison house in Brookfield, where they spent over a week, while being continuously attacked by the natives.
With some reinforcements, they eventually escaped from Brookfield, and Wheeler later recounted Hutchinson's fate: "We came to Marlborough on August the 14th when Capt. Hutchinson being not recovered of his wounds before his coming from Brookfield, and over-tired with his long journey, by reason of his weakness, soon grew worse, and more dangerously ill, and on the 19th day of the same month, died, and was there the next day after buried..." He was buried in the town cemetery, now the Springhill Cemetery, where a marker was erected in his honor in 1926. Commenting on his giving his life for the cause of the Massachusetts colony, historian Oliver Roberts noted that "he, who, with his mother, was persecuted, poured out his blood in the service of that uncharitable country.³ Edward was the oldest of the Hutchinson's 15 children, and in 1633 when Edward's pregnant mother realized that she was going to emigrate from England, she allowed Edward to travel to New England a year ahead of the family, and he sailed aboard the Griffin with his uncle Edward Hutchinson (Sr.) and wife, also being on the same ship as the Reverend John Cotton who soon became teaching minister in the Boston church. While Edward's uncle, Edward, was admitted to the Boston church in 1633, the young Edward wasn't admitted until 10 August 1634, just about the time that the remainder of the family arrived in Boston from England.
In 1636 Hutchinson sailed back to England, and while there he married Katherine Hamby, likely in Lawford in Essex. His father-in-law, Robert Hamby, had been a legal counselor in Ipswich] With his wife, he returned to the colonies later the same year, and it was about this time that his mother became embroiled in the events of the Antinomian Controversy. As the controversy came to a peak, his mother was brought to trial in November 1637, then sentenced to banishment by the General Court of the colony. She was not allowed to leave, however, until enduring a second trial in March 1638, this time by the clergy, and she was held in detention in the interim. Many members of the colony who shared the views of Mrs. Hutchinson, including Edward, met on 7 March 1638 to sign a document establishing a new government, and most of the signers left the Massachusetts colony shortly thereafter to go build houses on Aquidneck Island. Edward was one of the few family members who stayed in Boston in March, and was present at his mother's church trial, when he argued on her behalf that she should not be condemned for holding opinions in which she was not yet settled. It was then deemed by the church that since he showed natural love for his mother, that he too should be admonished, along with a few others who were also close to Mrs. Hutchinson, and by removing the dissent from the family members, the ministers were able to proceed with the excommunication against her.
Hutchinson likely accompanied his mother and siblings from Boston to Aquidneck Island in early April 1638, and there he became one of the founding settlers of the island community that was initially named Pocasset, but was soon renamed Portsmouth. However, since no charges were ever preferred against him by the Massachusetts authorities, he soon returned to Boston, and he and his young family became the residents and caretakers of the family house there. Ownership of the house went to his uncle, Richard Hutchinson, ironmonger of London, who never came to New England, but had many land and business interests there.
Hutchinson's mother, Anne Hutchinson, and many of his younger siblings perished in an Indian massacre in New Netherland in August 1643, and he likely learned of this in early September, about the same time that Governor John Winthrop recorded it in his journal. It is not clear when he learned that one of his siblings survived the attack and was taken hostage, but it was two and a half years after her capture that Winthrop wrote, "A daughter of Mistress Hutchinson was carried away by the Indians near the Dutch."After several years of living with the Siwanoy natives, Edward's young sister Susanna was released in an exchange, and brought back to Boston. While no record has survived detailing which of her siblings took her in, Kirkpatrick believes that it was Edward's house where she came to live.³