Mary Tyler

Wife of Job Tyler of Andover, Roxbury and Mendon; her maiden name is unknown. In 1659 she joined her family's deposition against John Godfrey, and the 1658/9 petition against Godfrey spoke of "a bird coming in to suck his wife". Probably the mother of Samuel Tyler, who married Hannah.

Family tree →
01

Family

Parents
Not known
02

Pedigree

documentedcompiledinferred
03

Notes

Wife of Job Tyler of Andover, Roxbury and Mendon; her maiden name is unknown. She joined in the family’s deposition against John Godfrey on 27 June 1659, and the 1658/9 petition against Godfrey complains of “a bird coming in to suck his wife.”

In 1646 “A lit infant also a twinn of Job Tilers dyed” at Roxbury (Roxbury church records, via Brigham). In 1662, after the Tyler house burned while Job was away, a neighbour named Ballard “gave said Tyler’s wife leave to come with her family for a time and live at his house” (EQC 2:404, editor’s abstract).

The Roxbury church entry of 28 May 1665 is read by Brigham as her dismissal to Mendon and by Savage as her admission to Roxbury. Mollie Pfeiffer’s year, 1645, is wrong.

Open questions

  • Her maiden name and parents.
  • The Roxbury church record of 28 May 1665: admission or dismissal?
Mollie's typescript· 1 passage · 2 claims checked

What Mollie wrote about her in The Holbrook and Low Families, and her claims about her checked against the records.

  1. With her husband Job she brought a charge of witchcraft against John Godfrey, and she was dismissed from the Roxbury church to Mendon (in 1665, not 1645 as Mollie has it).

    one with John Godfrey, against whom he and Mary Tyler, his wife, brought a charge of witchcraft. ... Mary Tyler was dismissed from the Roxbury Church to the church in Mendon May 28, 1645
    p. 136 →

Checked against the records

  • Proven
    Job and Mary Tyler accused John Godfrey of witchcraft

    True. In 1659 Job, Mary and two of their children swore they saw "a thing like a bird", as big as a pigeon, come in at the door with Godfrey at night and vanish "through the chinck of a joynted bord". In 1665/6 Godfrey was tried "on the Complaint & accusation of Job Tyler & John Rimington".

    Read it in the book, p. 136 →
  • Disproven
    Mary Tyler was dismissed from Roxbury church to Mendon in 1645

    The year is 1665: the Roxbury church entry is dated 28 May 1665. Brigham reads it as her dismissal to Mendon, Savage as her admission to Roxbury. The family was at Roxbury in 1665 and at Mendon by 1669.

    Read it in the book, p. 136 →
04

Connections

Famous kin
  • Edith Kermit Roosevelt 1861-1948
    First Lady (1901-1909), wife of Theodore Roosevelt
    Edith Kermit Roosevelt is the sixth cousin, twice removed, of the centre of this tree.
  • Mary Post b. 1664
    Accused in the Andover witchcraft outbreak, tried at Salem in January 1692/3
    Mary Post is the first cousin, seven times removed, of the centre of this tree.
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