Elizabeth Tuttle

Elizabeth Tuttle also known by her married name Elizabeth Tuttle Edwards (1645–1691 or after) was Puritan woman who lived in the New Haven Colony in what is now the state of Connecticut. She was brought up in a financially stable home and raised to be a Puritan "goodwife". Her dreams of running her own flouring household, like her mother, were ruined when she married Richard Edwards and was entangled in a sex scandal. The couple were married for 24 years and had six children. Rare for the time, Tuttle was divorced by her husband in 1691 for adultery. Tuttle and her descendants were subjects in the field of Eugenics by Charles Benedict Davenport and Clarence Darrow, having been the ancestor of many great leaders and educators. Descendants include Robert Treat Paine, signer of the Declaration of Independence, presidents of noted universities, a founder of a law school, an American Civil War general. Pierpont Edwards and Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States, were said to have inherited defects of her character. Her grandson was Jonathan Edwards, a revivalist preacher known as "America's theologian". Early life Elizabeth Tuttle was born in 1645 and baptized in November 1645 in New Haven as the eighth of twelve children born to William and Elizabeth Tuttle. Their twelve children were John, Hannah, Thomas, Jonathan, David, Joseph, Sarah, Elizabeth, Simon, Benjamin, Mercy, and Nathaniel. She was named after her mother, who she looked to as a good example of a Puritan "goodwife". Most of her siblings' misbehavior in their adolescence caused them to attract negative attention from the town authorities. Elizabeth and her siblings had received thorough and intense educations. William, Elizabeth, and their first three children arrived in New England on June 7, 1635, on board the Planter. They traveled with William's brothers and their families and his mother Isabella. William and Elizabeth settled initially in Charlestown. William was not accepted by the church there, which was problematic because church membership was a prerequisite for owning property in Charlestown. In 1636, his wife Elizabeth was accepted at the church in Boston. William helped establish the community now known as New Haven. On June 4, 1639, William signed the first covenant of the new colony. He was a farmer, merchant, part owner of a trading vessel, and a land owner in New Haven and the neighboring North Haven and East Haven communities.