Mary Dyer - Boston, MA
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 42° 21.474 W 071° 03.787
19T E 330094 N 4691576
"My life not availeth me
in comparison to the
liberty of the truth"- Mary Dyer
Waymark Code: WMNQ71
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 04/17/2015
Views: 14
Mary Dyer was executed in 1660 by the State of Massachusetts for being a Quaker. This quotation above is etched on the plinth of a memorial sculpture near the Massachusetts State House. It is from a letter she wrote while imprisoned and awaiting banishment from the State. This website (
visit link) informs us:
"Back in her cell, Mary composed another letter to the General Court, from which comes the inscription on her statue at Boston: "Once more the General Court, Assembled in Boston, speaks Mary Dyar, even as before: My life is not accepted, neither availeth me, in Comparison of the Lives and Liberty of the Truth and Servants of the Living God, for which in the Bowels of Love and Meekness I sought you; yet nevertheless, with wicked Hands have you put two of them to Death, which makes me to feel, that the Mercies of the Wicked is Cruelty." (Click here to read this second letter in its entirety.)
On October 18, 1659, William Dyer, Jr.'s petition on behalf of his mother to MA authorities, was thus answered: "Whereas Mary Dyer is condemned by the General Court to be executed for her offence; on the petition of William Dyer, her son, it is ordered the said Mary Dyer shall have liberty for forty-eight hours after this day to depart out of this jurisdiction, after which time being found therein she is to be executed."
Mary returned unwillingly back to Rhode Island. She was accompanied by four horsemen who followed her fifteen miles south of Boston. From there she was left in the custody of one man to escort her back to Rhode Island."
Read more about her at (
visit link)