The "Hutch": Named for USA's 1st Women's Libber

EXIT of the DAY provided by Sadie Beavers — aged 16 Today!

On the first day of Women's History Month...Hear this > Here!


EXIT 14 offramp I-95 s: Above the Hutchinson River Parkway, Co-op City NY


" This Spoken Road podcast was provided by 16 year old Sadie Beavers of  New Jersey. So listen up -- especially you girls  in the car. Sadie writes...."It was a long hard road for American women to attain equal rights with American men.  To get here was a huge struggle and here is right where some of it happened. You are passing under a big green Road Sign for the fast upcoming Co-op City, in The Bronx. Quick look up!  Above you is the Exit Sign to the Hutchinson River Parkway..."

Do you know who the Hutchinson Parkway is named for? Did you know it was named for a fearless lady who stood up to men and that she is considered a free speech hero and America’s earliest women's rights advocate?   The namesake reason of the Hutchinson River is just a few yards from here. It's the location of Anne Hutchinson's Split Rock home. The homestead boasts a monument with a tragic legacy. ​

In the 1640’s, Anne Hutchinson was a Pilgrim midwife exiled to this area from the Massachusetts Colony.  Before that, back in Boston on Sunday afternoons, Anne had begun to host women at her home. She encouraged discussions about the Sabbath’s sermons.  These meetings became so popular that Anne began including men.  

​This angered the religious fathers. They demanded she stop. Women were not suppose to lead. They were to be silent and to follow. But Anne refused to stop.    

For hosting religious discussions,  the colony's fathers kicked Anne and her family out of the Massachusetts Colony.  

When the men kicked her out of town, they beat a drum to embarrass her and to tell all the villagers to avoid this woman. But by then she had quite a few followers. Hutchinson and her supporters traveled south. They established the town of Portsmouth, Rhode Island near Newport in what became the Colony of Rhode Island.  ​

In Rhode Island, Anne led religious discussions openly.  More threats forced Anne to move totally outside the reach of the British.   

Ann and her family and a few others made the long trek west to a new country.  They moved to the Bronx which at the time was a different country. The Bronx was in the colony of New Holland owned by the more open minded Dutch. ​

But it was not the Dutch nor the British who ended Anne’s journey.   


Sometimes friendly, sometimes not, tensions with the native Algonquin Indians were high at the time. ​

In August 1643, Anne and six of her children were massacred during an attack right here in today’s Co-op City.  The place it happened is just yards from here at what is still called her Split Rock Farm.  The only survivor was her nine-year-old daughter, Susanna, who was taken captive but eventually released. ​

Anne Hutchinson is a very important leader in both in the development of religious freedom in England's colonies as well as the history of women in religion.


Anne questioned the total authority of ministers and she exposed the subordination of women.  She has been called the most famous, or infamous, English woman in Colonial American History... and likely the first women's libber in United States History.


No wonder the Hutchinson River and the Hutchinson Parkway are named for this  lady.  And now you know why!


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