Hannah Phillips was born to a wealthy family on 31 July 1754 in Middletown, Connecticut. After marrying William Cushing in 1774, she moved to Walnut Tree Hill, the Cushing mansion in Scituate, Massachusetts. Hannah and William had no children, leaving Hannah free to travel with her husband on circuit. "We are travelling machines," she wrote in a 1792 letter, "and have no abiding place in any sense of the word." Hannah Phillips Cushing died on 12 May 1834, having outlived her husband by almost twenty-four years.