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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.
Mary Barrett Dyer (1611 – 1660) was an English Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts for repeatedly defying a law banning Quakers from the colony. She is one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston martyrs.
Jun 1, 2017 · On this day in 1660, Mary Dyer was executed on the Boston Common for defying her banishment from Boston. Mary’s execution is one story in a larger narrative of frequent religious clashes in Boston's early days. Her death is often linked to the easing of anti-Quaker laws in Boston.
May 28, 2024 · Mary Dyer was a British-born religious figure whose martyrdom to her Quaker faith helped relieve the persecution of that group in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Married in 1633 in London to William Dyer, Mary Dyer went with him to America (c. 1635) and settled in Boston.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The men were convicted and hanged, and Mary was forced to watch their executions. Then the hangman placed the rope around Mary’s neck. At the last moment Mary was pardoned because the leadership in Boston did not want to execute a woman.
Mary Dyer, William Robinson, and Marmaduke Stevenson are led by 200 armed men, with beating drums, to the gallows. Robinson and Stevenson are hanged. As Mary stands on a ladder awaiting her execution, the reprieve is announced and she is taken back to prison, where Mary writes a second letter to the General Court.
On June 1, 1660, at nine o'clock, Mary Dyer again set out from the jail for the gallows on Boston Common, surrounded by a strong military guard. As she stood upon the fatal ladder, she was told if she would return home, she might come down and save her life.
