17 Facts About Susanna Cole

Susanna Cole was the lone survivor of a Native American attack in which many of her siblings were killed, as well as her famed mother Anne Hutchinson.

Susanna Cole was taken captive following the attack and held for several years before her release.

Susanna Cole was less than five when her family settled on Aquidneck Island in the Narragansett Bay following her mother's banishment from Massachusetts during the Antinomian Controversy.

Susanna Cole's father died when she was about eight years old, and she, her mother, and six of her siblings left Rhode Island to live in New Netherland.

Susanna Cole was taken captive by the Indians, and was traded back to the English three years later.

When Susanna was released from her Indian captivity, she was taken to Boston where her oldest brother and an older sister lived, was re-introduced into English society, and married Edward Cole at the age of 18, the son of Boston innkeeper Samuel Cole.

Susanna Cole was the youngest child of William and Anne Hutchinson to accompany her parents on the voyage from England to New England in 1634.

Susanna Cole was the couple's 14th child, of whom 11 survived to make the trip to the New World; a 15th child was born in New England.

Susanna Cole was less than five years old when the family left Boston, and she was about eight when her father died in Portsmouth.

Susanna Cole was about eight years old, when she was taken, and continued with them about four years, and she had forgot her own language, and all her friends, and was loath to have come from the Indians.

Sources indicate that during her time with the Siwanoys, Susanna Cole bore a son to Siwanoy sachem Wampage I - Ninham-Wampage, who would later become Wampage II.

Only her brother Edward is known to have lived in Boston proper, and it is likely that Susanna Cole came to live with him and his family.

Susanna and John Cole began raising a family in Boston, but they went to look after her brother's land in the Narragansett country by 1663, which was then in disputed territory but later became North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

Many of the Wickford inhabitants preferred to be under the jurisdiction of Connecticut, and John Susanna Cole became a magistrate and commissioner for the area in the late 1660s under the auspices of the Connecticut government.

Rhode Island was eventually given control over the Narragansett lands following many years of dispute and tension, and John Susanna Cole was made a conservator of the peace under the Rhode Island government in 1682.

Susanna and John Cole had 11 children: Susanna, Samuel, Mary, John, Ann, a second John, Hannah, William, Francis, Elizabeth, and Elisha; at least 9 of them grew to maturity.

Susanna Cole's grandson John Cole, the son of Elisha Cole, was a chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.