The Notorious Elizabeth Tuttle: Marriage, Murder, and Madness in the Family of Jonathan Edwards

273 Pages·2012·3.16 MB·English

by  Ava Chamberlain

The Notorious Elizabeth Tuttle
North American Religions
Series Editors: Tracy Fessenden (Religious Studies, Arizona State University),
Laura Levitt (Religious Studies, Temple University), and
David Harrington Watt (History, Temple University)
In recent years a cadre of industrious, imaginative, and theoretically sophisticated scholars of
religion have focused their attention on North America. As a result the field is far more sub-
tle, expansive, and interdisciplinary than it was just two decades ago. The North American
Religions series builds on this transformative momentum. Books in the series move among
the discourses of ethnography, cultural analysis, and historical study to shed new light on a
wide range of religious experiences, practices, and institutions. They explore topics such as
lived religion, popular religious movements, religion and social power, religion and cultural
reproduction, and the relationship between secular and religious institutions and practices.
The series focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on religion in the United States in the twen-
tieth and twenty-first centuries.
Books in the series:
The Notorious Elizabeth Tuttle: Marriage, Murder, and
Madness in the Family of Jonathan Edwards
Ava Chamberlain
The Notor(cid:18)ous El(cid:18)zabeth Tuttle
Marr(cid:4)age, Murder, and Madness (cid:4)n the
Fam(cid:4)ly of Jonathan Edwards
Ava Chamberlain
a
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2012 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet Websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs
that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Chamberlain, Ava.
The notorious Elizabeth Tuttle : marriage, murder, and madness in the family of Jonathan
Edwards / Ava Chamberlain.
p. cm. — (North American religions)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8147-2372-2 (cl : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8147-2373-9 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-8147-2374-6 (ebook)
1. Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758—Family. 2. Tuttle, Elizabeth, b. 1645—Marriage.
3. Edwards, Richard, 1647-1718—Marriage. 4. Tuttle family. 5. Edwards family. 6.
Families—Mental health. 7. Divorce—Connecticut—History—17th century. 8. Murder—
Connecticut—History—17th century. 9. Connecticut—Biography. I. Title.
BX7260.E3C48 2012
285.8092—dc23
[B]
2012010671
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials
are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible
suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my mother, Evelyn L. Chamberlain,
my siblings, Tommy, George, and Emily Chamberlain,
and the memory of my father, Hiram S. Chamberlain III
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Note on Sources xiii
Introduction 1
Prologue 11
[ 1 ] Hardy Puritan Pioneers 13
[ 2 ] Three Struggling Patriarchs 35
[ 3 ] A Brutal Murder 61
[ 4 ] A Criminal Lunatic 85
[ 5 ] A Messy Divorce 109
[ 6 ] The Inheritance 139
[ 7 ] Blood Will Tell 159
Conclusion 191
Notes 201
Index 247
About the Author 258
[ vii ]
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments
This project was conceived during an NEH Summer Seminar on “Early
American Microhistories” that was held at the University of Connecticut in
2005, when Richard D. Brown, the seminar’s director, remarked, “Two mur-
ders in one family! There must be a story here.” Without his encouragement,
and the introduction to the literature and methodology of microhistory this
seminar provided, this story would have never been told. Participants in the
William and Mary Quarterly–Early Modern Studies Institute Workshop on
“Writing Early American History,” convened at the Huntington Library by
Fred Anderson and Andrew Clayton in the spring of 2008, provided impor-
tant additional direction. One comment made during this workshop, that I
must make the reader “care about this woman,” led me to reconceptualize the
story’s organization entirely.
The bulk of the research for this book was conducted at the Connecticut
State Library in Hartford. Summer after summer I arrived at the library and
in a frenzy of activity collected the sources I needed for another year’s work.
The expertise and patient assistance of the staff of CSL’s History and Geneal-
ogy Unit made these research trips both enjoyable and productive. I espe-
cially wish to thank Mark H. Jones, the State Archivist, and Carol Ganz, Bon-
nie Linck, Jeannie Sherman, and Mel Smith, the reference staff, for all their
help over the years. I am also grateful to the staff of Wright State University’s
Paul Lawrence Dunbar Library, particularly Diana Kaylor and Piper Martin,
for their many forms of assistance. In addition, the staffs of the American
Philosophical Society, the British Library, the Connecticut Historical Soci-
ety, the Franklin Trask Library at Andover–Newton Theological School, the
Massachusetts Archives, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the National
[ ix ]