When Anne Hutchinson was banished for her spiritual beliefs in 1638, one person came to her side in support, Mary Dyer. Like many Pilgrims in Boston the Dyer family had become interested in Hutchinson's spiritual thinking, and joined her in exile.

Mary Dyer returned to Boston when she learned two of her friends had been jailed and would stand trail as Quakers. Dyer was jailed for sympathizing with them, and the three were banished. Weeks later they returned to Boston to look what they called an unjust law in the face, and were sentenced to death.

The three were paraded across the Boston Common to the gallows by two hundred guards. Dyer heard her friends profess their faith as they were hung. Next she stood with a noose tightened around her neck, facing the crowd, as her husband begged for her life.

Governor John Endicott stayed her execution and exiled her again with a final warning to be gone. Seven months later she returned to face the law; the middle-aged mother of six was finally executed on this day in 1660.