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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.
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She was sentenced to death on May 31, 1660. The following day, Mary died by public hanging on Boston Common. According to eyewitness accounts, she used her last words to publicly condemn the laws against religious toleration one final time.
Mary Dyer, Marmaduke Stevenson, and Nicholas Davis are sentenced to “punishment upon pain of death” under the recently enacted law. Stevenson heads for Salem, where he is again arrested (with William Robinson) and returned to Boston.
Determined to spread the good news, Mary returned to New England as a Quaker missionary. Ultimately, Mary's public actions in support of her religious beliefs led her to the gallows on Boston Neck, the first woman executed in America for acting on her religious beliefs: Mary Dyer, "the Quaker Martyr."
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
Jan 14, 2020 · Mary Dyer was a Quaker martyr in colonial Massachusetts. Her execution, and the religious freedom initiatives taken in memory of that, make her a key figure in American religious freedom history. She was hanged on June 1, 1660.
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.
