Susanna Hutchinson was baptized in Alford, Lincolnshire on 15 November 1633. She was the youngest child of
William and
Anne Hutchinson to accompany her parents on the voyage from England to
New England in 1634. She 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. The family settled in
Boston and lived across the street from magistrate
John Winthrop, who was a judge during the civil trial in 1637 that led to her mother's banishment from the Massachusetts colony. While Hutchinson was still very young, her mother hosted popular religious discussions at their home. Her mother's religious views were at odds with the orthodoxy of the
Puritan ministers; she helped to create a major division in the Boston church and an untenable situation for the colony's leaders. The family was forced to leave Massachusetts; they settled with many of her mother's supporters on
Rhode Island in the
Narragansett Bay, establishing the settlement of
Portsmouth which soon became a part of the
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Susanna was less than five years old when the family left Boston, and she was about eight when her father died in Portsmouth. Susanna's widowed mother was frightened at the prospect of Massachusetts gaining influence or control over Rhode Island. Consequently, she moved to the part of
New Netherland that later became
The Bronx in
New York City, along with her six youngest children, an older son, a son-in-law, and some servants. The Dutch were engaged in
Kieft's War against the
Siwanoy Indians during the family's tenure there. In August 1643, Siwanoy attacked the emigrant household and killed all members of the family, except for nine-year-old Susanna. According to one story, Susanna's red hair spared her from the slaughter, while another account claimed that the girl was out picking blueberries some distance from the house and hid in the crevice of
Split Rock. In any event, the attackers took her captive and held her for several years. , where one legend says that Susanna Hutchinson hid during the Indian massacre which killed her mother and siblings Massachusetts governor
John Winthrop provides an account of Susanna in his journal, under the date of July 1646: A daughter of Mrs. Hutchinson was carried away by the Indians near the Dutch, when her mother and others were killed by them; and upon the peace concluded between the Dutch and the same Indians, she was returned to the Dutch governor, who restored her to her friends here. She 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 bore a son to Siwanoy sachem
Wampage I - Ninham-Wampage, who would later become Wampage II. Winthrop says that Hutchinson was captive for about four years, although his journal makes clear that her captivity lasted less than three years. When she returned to Boston, her living siblings were her oldest brother
Edward, brother Samuel, and her two oldest surviving sisters Faith (the wife of
Thomas Savage) and Bridget (the wife of
John Sanford). Faith lived in Mount Wollaston, about ten miles south of Boston; Bridget lived in Portsmouth, Rhode Island; and Samuel's residence is unknown. Only her brother Edward is known to have lived in Boston proper, and it is likely that Susanna came to live with him and his family. On 30 December 1651, she married John Cole in Boston, the son of Boston innkeeper
Samuel Cole, who had established Boston's first tavern in 1634. == Adult life ==