Anne and William were married in England and had up to fourteen children there. They were followers of the Puritan minister John Cotton and when he was exiled to the colonies they followed.

Anne and William arrived in America with ten surviving children in July 1634 and settled in Boston (Massachusetts Bay Colony). Anne was a housewife and midwife and began holding weekly meetings of women to discuss the Sunday sermons. This gathering became larger and her views on religion, and criticism of the sermons, eventually drew the attention of the Puritan leadership of the colony. This was called the Antinomian Controversy. She was tried and convicted of heresy and banished from the colony in 1637 by Governor John Winthrop. She refused to recant, in effect demanding freedom of religion and freedom of assembly.

She later settled with some of her supporters in Rhode Island. After William died she moved with her younger children to Pelham Bay, New York. In 1643 she, along with her younger children and servants, was killed in an Indian raid.