Mary Barrett Dyer was born circa 1611 in England and died 1 June 1660 Execution of Hanging. He married William Dyer (1609-1672) 27 October 1633 in Westminster, Middlesex, England.
Biography
Mary Dyer, born Marie Barrett (c. 1611 – 1 June 1660) was an English and colonial American Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony. She is one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston martyrs.
Anne Hutchinson / Mary Dyer Memorial Herb Garden at Founders' Brook Park in Portsmouth RI
While the place of her nativity has not been discovered, she was married in London in 1633 to the milliner William Dyer (1609-1672). Mary and William were Puritans who were interested in reforming the Anglican Church from within, without separating from it. As the English king increased pressure on the Puritans, they left England by the thousands to come to New England in the early 1630s, and Mary and William arrived in Boston by 1635, joining the Boston Church in December of that year. Like most members of Boston's church, they soon became involved in the events of the Antinomian Controversy, a theological crisis lasting from 1636 to 1638. Mary and William were strong advocates of Anne Hutchinson and John Wheelwright (1593-1679) in the controversy, and as a result Mary's husband was disenfranchised and disarmed for supporting these "heretics" and for harboring his own heretical views. Subsequently, they left Massachusetts with many others to establish a new colony on Aquidneck Island (later Rhode Island) in the Narraganset Bay.
Howard Pyle painting of Mary Dyer being led to her execution in 1660.
More than a decade later, in about 1651, Mary Dyer boarded a ship for England, and stayed there for over five years, becoming an avid follower of the Quaker religion that had been established by George Fox several years earlier. Because Quakers were considered among the most heinous of heretics by the Puritans, Massachusetts enacted several laws against them. When Mary returned to Boston from England, she was immediately imprisoned, and then banished upon pain of death. Having decided that she would die as a martyr if the anti-Quaker laws were not repealed, Mary returned to Boston and was sent to the gallows in 1659, and had the rope around her neck when a reprieve was announced. Not accepting the reprieve, she again returned to Boston the following year, and this time was hanged (01-Jun-1660) to become the third of four Quaker martyrs. Her martyrdom transformed her from a silent object into a speaking subject, and was as much a spiritual triumph as it was a tragic injustice.
Children
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| Samuel Dyer (1635-1678) | 20 December 1635 Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts | 1678 Kingston, Washington County, Rhode Island | Anne Hutchinson (1643-1716) |
Siblings
References
- Life of Mary Dyer - Wikipedia
- William Dyer List of Famous Descendants -