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Note: she married Richard Edwards. She was violent, unfaithful, and angry and threatened to kill her husband. Her brother killed a sister with an ax and her sister murdered her own child. In 1691 her husband was allowed to divorce her, and he remarried to Mary Talcott.
THE CONNECTUCUT QUARTERLY:
"The branch of the Tuttle family from which Elizabeth Tuttle came, was erratic to the degree of insanity, and is so to a certain extent to the present day. This family taint was restrained by the strong will and great spirituality and intellectural vigor of Reverend Timothy and Reverend Jonathan, only to crop out again in renewed activity in the son (Pierpont Edwards) and the grandson (Aaron Burr), of the 'divine Jonathan', both of whom were profligate, vicious and licentious. Mrs. Richard Edwards' brother was found guilty of slaying his sister, by the Colonial Court, and executed; and another sister was found guilty of killing her own son, but through the confusion existing at that time, she escaped the penalty of the law"
Elizabeth Tuttle, the eighth child of William Tuttle and Elizabeth Mathews, married Richard Edwards November 19, 1667. Elizabeth early on showed signs of an impetuous nature and lack of decorum, which was quite at odds with the Puritan standards of the day.
From the minutes of "A County Court holden by adjornment at Hartford, 1668" came this note: "Richard Edwards and Elizabeth, his wife, being called to an account of incontinency before marriage, the Court having considered what hath been presented, with the acknowledgement of the said Richard that he was upon the bed with her at Mr. Wells, his house, before marriage, the best part of one night, and in company with her at New Haven (according to which the child was borne), this Court cannot but judge and declare the child borne of the said Elizabeth to be and be reputed child of the said Richard Edwards, and for their incontinency before marriage, they are adjudged to pay (as) a fine to the public treasury of the County of Hartford, the sum of five pounds."
Richard subsequently learned that he was not the father of the first child, Mary, and on July 2, 1689, he filed a petition to divorce her. He rather plantively based his divorce action on the following four reasons: "(1) Her being guilty at first of a fact of ye same nature; (2) Her refusing me so longer together: (3) Her carage having been observed by some to be very fond and unseemly to some other man than myself; (4) Her often commending on other man with show or ye like words...he was worth a thousnad of myself."That "other man" may have been one William Pitkin, for he brought suiit against Richard Edwards in May of 1691 for using a term in his divorce casee that was "derogatory of his (Pitkin's) honor." The records found in "Crimes and Misdemeanors, Divorces, 1664-1732. Document No. 235" read:
"He found, three months after marriage, that she was with child by another (Mr. Randolph), who she accused before 2 magistrates; and her father (William Tuttle) took and brought up the child; which from regard to her and relying upon her fair promises, he (Richard) neglected to take advantage of her, for which he had bitter cause to repent. He lived with her eight or nine years, when she obstinately refused conjugal communion with him, and deserted his bed; and her conduct was so intolerable that by advice, he travelled abroad, hoping by his absence she would relent. On his return, for a while, she behaved herself, but soon, in answer to some question, she said she had committed folly with another man, whom she named, and fell into her old fits of obstinancy, and he renounced her as a wife,and so has since lived. She has caused him intolerable and insupportable afflictions. He enters into a long scriptural argument for divorce and quotes early Christian examples and authorities. She is guilty of adultery,and he prays a release".
Edwards' plea for divorce was denied despite the fact that Elizabeth's two eldest children by Edwards, Timothy and Abigail, testified against her, "to the great obstinancy of their mother and to her absenting herself from their father's bed and society".
Two years later, in October of 1691, a council of "able divines (including the famous Reverend Thomas Hooker and Reverend Increase Mather) were assembled to consider the divorce action again. At that time Richard made a second, more long-winded plea. By then he was calling himself an attorney, though he was self-taught. Besides, he needed to be free to marry Mary Talcott, with whom he had lain already. In fact, Mary Talcott had been fined for fornication with him.
On top of that, Mercy Brown, Elizabeth's sister, had killed her son the previous spring and her brother Benjamin had been executed for murdering their sister, Sarah prior to that. It became clear that Elizabeth herself was, at times, not in her right mind, and often threatened to murder her husband while he was asleep. Surely the judges would understand that Richard's fear of Elizabeth was not ungrounded. The upshot of this second plea was that the ministers decides "it is not within the compass of human power to deny him a divorce." Edwards was granted the divorce and eventually married Mary Talcott, with whom he had six children.
After the divorce, there is no record of Elizabeth ever marrying again. Nor was the date of her death recorded, which leads one to believe that she may have been leading a marginal existence by the time she died. It is possible too, that she committed suicide. Suicide ws a grave sin in those times, and a person who had committed suicide could not be buried in a cemetery. Perhaps she has wandered to another, wilder part of the country and died in an area where records were not kept.
Ironically, Elizabeth Tuttle was the ancestor of a family that was to have an amazing impact on American history. Her son,Timothy married a Stoddard,and he became the father of Jonathan Edwards, the brilliant, neurotic minister who has been called the last of the great Puritans. Jonathan Edwards married a Pierepont. His descendants went onto be influential ministers, college presidents, financiers, surgeons and judges. Perhaps the most famous descendant was Aaron Burr.
Note: She was insane, she revealed her pregnancy by another man 3 months after
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