Anna Hett

• General Notes
  • 'Anne Needham' was admitted to Boston church as member #100, which would be in the winter of 1630-1 [BChR 14]. 7 August 1642: 'Our sister Anne Hett sometimes called Anne Needham and now the wife of one Thomas Hett of Hinngham [sic] was in open assembly by our pastor with the consent of the church by their silence, excommunicated out of the church, for open blasphemous speeches of hatred against God, and for sundry scandalous attempts, of drowning one of her children, and likewise for her stubborn unruliness with her husband, as also for her inordinate idle walking in her calling, and further also for her willful contempt of God's holy ordinances' [BChR 37]. 23 July 1643: 'Whereas our sister Anne Hett on the 7th day of the 6th month 1642 was cast out of the church ... she is this day upon her public penitential acknowledgement thereof restored again to the fellowship of the church' [BChR 38-39]. COMMENTS: Winthrop took note of Anne (Needham) Hett and her problems on three occasions. Under date of 5 August 1637 he wrote: 'A woman of Boston congregation, having been in much trouble of mind about her spiritual estate, at length grew into utter desperation, and could not endure to hear of any comfort, etc., so as one day she took her little infant and threw it into a well, and then came into the house and said, now she was sure she would be damned, for she had drowned her child; but some, stepping presently forth, saved the child' [WJ 1:281-82]; a marginal note says 'Hett's wife distracted.' On 18 May 1642 Winthrop gave an even longer account of an unsuccessful attempt to drown another child, this one being three years old in 1642 [WJ 2:79], and this is one of the grounds for the excommunication a few months later. Finally, in May of 1643 Winthrop openly identifies her as 'the wife of one [blank] Hett' and tells of her reconciliation with the church [WJ 2:156].