FOUNDING OF HARVARD ALMOST PREVENTED BY HUTCHINSON FACTION

Mysterious seances in the home of the most attractive woman in Boston were the breeding grounds for opposition to the founding of Harvard College, according to a story told in "The Founding of Harvard College" which will be published this winter by Samuel Eliot Morison '08, professor of History.

Perhaps it was the influence of a pretty woman in the days when women were few in the Bay Colony, possibly it was Anne Hutchinson's reputation as the best mid-wife in New England, or it may have been a natural revolt from the overly-strict Calvinist doctrines of the Puritans that was responsible for the growth of a sect which was nearly successful in gaining control of the legislature. On that control rested the fate of Harvard, for learning was a thing to be abhorred as from the Devil. It could only lead to confusion, and, never having heard of Gertrude Stein, believed that the only way to avoid confusion and gain the truth was to have revelations from God.

The more progressive colonists, except her brother-in-law and a close friend, flocked to her banner and supported her crusade against the whole ministry. Her party became so large that the General Court feared the result of the coming election and moved to the Cambridge Common, then eight miles from Boston, in the correct belief that some of the Hutchinson party would not take the day off to cast their ballot.

By a close vote the Conservatives were placed in power and immediately banished Mrs. Hutchinson to Rhode Island to commune with the Devil and the Indians, and then took up the unfinished business of erecting a building for the college which had been voted two years previously.