49 Facts About Mary Dyer

Mary Dyer is one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston martyrs.

When Mary Dyer returned to Boston from England, she was immediately imprisoned and then banished.

That Mary Dyer was well educated is apparent from the two surviving letters that she wrote.

Mary and William Dyer were Puritans, as evidenced by their acceptance into the membership of the Boston church in New England.

William Mary Dyer was among those who signed the petition which accused the General Court of condemning the truth of Christ.

Such microscopic inspection caused even private matters to become looked at publicly for the purpose of instruction, and Mary Dyer's tragedy was widely examined for signs of God's judgment.

In Winthrop's eyes, Mary Dyer's case was unequivocal, and he was convinced that her "monstrous birth" was a clear signal of God's displeasure with the antinomian heretics.

Winthrop felt that it was quite providential that the discovery of the "monstrous birth" occurred exactly when Anne Hutchinson was excommunicated from the local body of believers, and exactly one week before Mary Dyer's husband was questioned in the Boston church for his heretic opinions.

Twenty years after the tragic birth, when Mary Dyer returned to the public spotlight for her Quaker evangelism, she continued to be remembered for the birth of her dysmorphic child, this time in the diary of John Hull.

The most outrageous accounting of Mary Dyer's infant occurred in 1667 when a memorandum of the Englishman Sir Joseph Williamson quoted a Major Scott about the event.

William and Mary Dyer joined William and Anne Hutchinson and many others in building the new settlement on Aquidneck Island.

In 1640 the two towns of Portsmouth and Newport united, and Coddington was elected governor, while Mary Dyer was chosen as Secretary, and held this position from 1640 to 1647.

Three men were then directed to go to England to get Coddington's commission revoked: Roger Williams, representing the mainland towns, and John Clarke and William Mary Dyer representing the two island towns.

Biographer Ruth Plimpton hinted that Mary Dyer had some royal connection, and suggested that the news of the execution of King Charles I compelled her to go.

Mary Dyer would remain in England for the next four years.

Mary Dyer is the one who later wrote the vindication to England, justifying the execution of the first two Quakers in 1659.

Mary Dyer had made the arduous trek with another woman and with her "Babe sucking at her Breast" to give her Quaker testimony to friends in Weymouth.

In early 1657 Mary Dyer returned to New England with the widow Ann Burden, who came to Boston to settle the estate of her late husband.

Mary Dyer's husband had to come to Boston to get her out of jail, and he was bound and sworn not to allow her to lodge in any Massachusetts town, or to speak to any person while traversing the colony to return home.

Mary Dyer nevertheless continued to travel in New England to preach her Quaker message, and in early 1658 was arrested in the New Haven Colony, and then expelled for preaching her "inner light" belief, and the notion that women and men stood on equal ground in church worship and organization.

Anti-Quaker laws had been enacted there, and after Mary Dyer was arrested, she was "set on a horse", and forced to leave.

Davis returned to Plymouth, Mary Dyer went home to Newport, but Robinson and Stephenson remained in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, spending time in Salem.

When Mary Dyer heard of these arrests, she left her home in Newport, and returned to Boston to support her Quaker brethren, ignoring her order of banishment, and being incarcerated.

Mary Dyer's husband had already come to Boston two years earlier to retrieve her from the authorities, signing an oath that she wouldn't return.

Mary Dyer walked hand-in-hand with the two men, and between them.

Marmaduke Stephenson was the next to hang, and then it was Mary Dyer's turn after she witnessed the execution of her two friends.

Mary Dyer stood calmly on the ladder, prepared for her death, but as she waited, an order of a reprieve was announced.

The day after Mary Dyer was pulled from the gallows she wrote a letter to the General Court, refusing to accept the provision of the reprieve.

The wording of this petition suggested that the reprieve of Mary Dyer should soften the reality of the martyrdom of the two men.

Mary Dyer used her time here to mull over the vindication prepared by the Puritan authorities to send to England, concerning their actions against the Quakers.

Dyer: I am the same Mary Dyer that was here the last General Court.

Mary Dyer: This is no more than what thou saidst before.

Mary Dyer: I came in obedience to the will of God the last General Court, desiring you to repeal your unrighteous laws of banishment on pain of death; and that same is my work now, and earnest request, although I told you that if you refused to repeal them, the Lord would send others of his servants to witness against them.

Also, this entry states that Mary Dyer was buried there in Boston where she was hanged, and biographer Rogers echoed this, but this is not likely.

Johan Winsser presents evidence that Mary was buried on the Dyer family farm, located north of Newport where the Navy base is situated in the current town of Middletown.

Mary Dyer possessed a "vigorous intentionality" in engaging with the magistrates and ministers, both in her speech and in her behavior.

Mary Dyer took full responsibility for her actions, while imploring the Puritan authorities to assume their moral responsibility for her death.

Mary Dyer refuted the image of her as a sinner in need of repentance, and contested the authority of the elders of the church.

Just like Hutchinson's befuddling of her accusers during her civil trial, Mary Dyer did not allow her interrogators to feel assured in how they framed her meaning.

Mary Dyer became known in the public eye on the day when Anne Hutchinson was excommunicated, and Mary Dyer took her hand while they walked out of the meeting house together.

Mary Dyer had a strong affiliation and allegiance to this older woman who shared the secret of her unfortunate birth.

Unlike the story of Anne Hutchinson, that was narrated for more than a century by only her enemies, the orthodox Puritans, Mary Dyer's story became the story of the Quakers, and it was quickly shared in England, and eventually made its way before King Charles II.

The evidence from a personal standpoint and from the standpoint of all Quakers, suggests that Mary Dyer's ending was as much a spiritual triumph as it was a tragic injustice.

Mary Dyer was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 1997 and into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2000.

Mary Dyer was featured in Rachel Dyer, an 1828 novel by John Neal that connects her martyrdom with the Salem witch trials.

Mary Dyer had eight known children, six of whom grew to adulthood.

Mary Dyer was married to Martha Pearce, the daughter of Richard Pearce.

Mary Dyer's youngest child was Charles, born roughly 1650, whose first wife was named Mary; there are unsupported claims that she was a daughter of John Lippett.

Notable descendants of Mary Dyer include Rhode Island Governors Elisha Dyer and Elisha Dyer, Jr.