Elizabeth Mathews ¹

  General Notes:

This memorial was created by the late Earl R. Loose and transferred for management to the current maintainer, Elizabeth's descendant. Mr. Loose claimed, from an unstated source that cannot be found, that Elizabeth was the dau. of Edward Mathews and Elizabeth Nashe, bapt. June 2, 1612 at county Devon, England. The benchmark genealogy of the William Tuttle family published in 1883 includes no statement as to Elizabeth's origins. The center of county Devon in southwest England is some 180 miles from Ringstead in county Northampton NNW of London, which on its face makes Elizabeth's supposed nativity dubious.

Most noticeable is Elizabeth's supposed age at death on her gravestone: "Age" 76. In the era in which Elizabeth died, age at death on gravestones consistently stated a person's age using one of the variations of the Latin term "Ætatis," which in Elizabeth's cryptic inscription means she died Ætatis 76 and 75 years old. If this is true, she was born in the year 1609. William and Elizabeth Tuttle had no son named Edward who would have been named for his purported maternal grandfather. Also, the name Edward is not found among William and Elizabeth's 23 known grandsons that carried the Tuttle surname. Thus, Mr. Loose ascribed the wrong parentage to Elizabeth and his claim of Elizabeth's maiden name, birth date and location have been deleted from this memorial. One would reasonably assume the name of Elizabeth's father is the name of one of her seven sons not named Simon. But which one?

By 1631, Elizabeth m. William Tuttle, s. of Simon Tuttle and Isabel Wells of Ringstead, Northamptonshire. Per my study of some 500 early New England ancestors and related family, in the 1600s it was rare that the first child was born more than 10-11 months after the wedding night. That William and Elizabeth Tuttle's first child was bapt. in December 1631 is highly suggestive that they married by early 1631. For a summary of the 12 children, see the memorial for their father.

Per the New Haven, Conn. vital records, "Elizabeth Tuttle widdow dyed ye 30th day of Decembr 1684." Her gravestone marker uses the pre-1752 numerical date of "31:10:1684", meaning she d. the "31st day of the 10th month (Dec.) 1684." The 31st day is used in this memorial as the date of her death.

Revised 3/19/2012

Elizabeth married William Tuttle, son of Symon Tuttle and Isabel Wells. (William Tuttle was born on 29 Oct 1607 in Northamptonshire, England, died on 16 Jun 1673 in New Haven, New Haven County, Connecticut, USA and was buried in Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven, New Haven County, Connecticut, USA.)