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

273 Pages·2012·3.16 MB·English
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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 ]

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Who was Elizabeth Tuttle?  In most histories, she is a footnote, a blip. At best, she is a minor villain in the story of Jonathan Edwards, perhaps the greatest American theologian of the colonial era. Many historians consider Jonathan Edwards a theological genius, wildly ahead of his time, a Purita
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