William Dyer (settler)

For doing this, he was disenfranchised and disarmed, and with many other supporters of Hutchinson, he signed the Portsmouth Compact, and settled on Aquidneck Island in the Narragansett Bay.

Once in Newport, Dyer was very active in civil affairs, holding a number of offices, particularly those using his clerical skills such as clerk and secretary.

Following Mary's death, Dyer remarried, and continued his public service, while having some legal entanglements with William Coddington.

[4] In March 1638 Winthrop wrote the following about the Dyers and the infant: "The wife of one William Dyer, a milliner in the New Exchange, a very proper and fair woman, and both of them notoriously infected with Mrs. Hutchinson's errors, and very censorious and troublesome (she being of a very proud spirit, and much addicted to revelations) had been delivered of a child some few months before...it had a face but no head..."[4] Winthrop went on to describe the deformities, and add his own embellishments, and declared that this was divine reaction to the sinful errors of Hutchinson, Wheelwright, and their followers.

Scores of the followers of Wheelwright and Hutchinson were ordered out of the Massachusetts colony, but before leaving, a group of them, including Dyer, signed what is sometimes called the Portsmouth Compact, establishing a non-sectarian civil government upon the universal consent of the inhabitants, with a Christian focus.

Planning initially to settle in New Netherland, the group was persuaded by Roger Williams to purchase some land of the Indians on the Narragansett Bay.

They settled on the north east end of Aquidneck Island, and established a settlement they called Pocasset, but in 1639 changed the name to Portsmouth.

[3] The men and their families soon moved to the south end of Aquidneck Island, establishing the settlement of Newport, once again under the leadership of Coddington.

Roger Williams, who envisioned a union of all four settlements on the Narragansett Bay, went to England to obtain a patent bringing all four towns under one government.

The venerable Dr. John Clarke voiced his opposition to the island governor, and he and Dyer were sent to England as agents of the discontents to get the Coddington commission revoked.

[12] Simultaneously, the mainland towns of Providence and Warwick sent Roger Williams on a similar errand, and the three men sailed for England in November 1651.

[12] Whether true or not, Coddington was accused of taking sides with the Dutch on matters of colonial trade, and in October 1652 his commission for the island government was revoked.

[3] Following the intercession of her husband, she was released, but Dyer was bound to not let her lodge in any town of the Massachusetts Bay Colony nor to speak to anyone during the journey home.

[2] In 1661 he was a Newport Commissioner, in 1663 he was one of several prominent citizens named in the Rhode Island Royal Charter,[17] from 1664 to 1666 he was a Deputy, from 1665 to 1668 he was the General Solicitor, and in 1669 he was secretary to the council.