Family correspondence.
Tyler Family Archive, Archive of Correspondence of the Tyler Family of Brattleboro,
Vermont, Royall Tyler, Mary Palmer Tyler, his wife, and their children George Palmer
Tyler, Amelia Sophia Tyler, amongst other correspondents, 1800-1884
Manuscript archive of 290 letters, 922 pages of correspondence, plus ephemeral items and other
manuscript materials.
Collection of family correspondence of the Tyler family including letters from Royall Tyler
(1757-1826, author and jurist, America’s first playwright, and Mary Palmer Tyler, (1775-
1866) his wife, who wrote one of the earliest childcare manuals published by an American
woman, she was a sister of Elizabeth Palmer (1777?-1853), whose daughters were the “three
Peabody Sisters,” Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Mary Tyler Peabody, and Sophia Amelia
Peabody. The collection also includes correspondence from their children, particularly
George Palmer Tyler (1809-1896) (and his fiancé and wife Elizabeth A. Trowbridge); Amelia
Sophia Tyler (1807-1878). The Tyler’s cousins included the celebrated Peabody sisters and
George Palmer Putnam, the founder of the publishing firm.
Royall Tyler1 was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Royall Tyler, prominent merchant
and revolutionary patriot, and Mary Steele. Tyler like his father attended Harvard, graduating
with a B. A. degree in 1776. An inheritance was sufficient to prevent any immediate financial
worries, he proceeded to study law with Francis Dana, among others, but also to associate
with the painter John Trumbull’s circle, where his wit and his tendency to dissipation were
evident. Following his brief service as a major in General John Sullivan’s unsuccessful
campaign to liberate Newport from the British in August 1778, he completed his legal
studies, received an M.A. from Harvard, 1779, and was admitted to the bar in 1780. He began
his legal practice at Falmouth (now Portland) Maine, but in the spring of 1782 he returned to
the Boston area, settling in Braintree.
The next five years brought notable incidents in his life, first was his love affair with Abigail
Adams, niece of his landlord, Richard Cranch, and daughter of John Adams, the future
president. Mr. Adams was against the match, who doubted Tyler’s sense of responsibility,
and was no doubt pleased when Abigail jilted Tyler, in mid-1785, in favor of Colonel
William Stephens Smith, his secretary of legation in London.
Adams was probably astute in his judgment of Tyler’s character. Tyler dejected after his
rejection began boarding in the home of a friend from his Harvard days, Joseph Pearse
Palmer, and was left alone with his wife and family while Palmer traveled to Maine to lo for
work in the lumber trade during the fall of 1785. Betsey Palmer, his friend’s wife was Tyler’s
chief comforter during the fall and winter of 1785-1786. He fathered a daughter, Sophia
Palmer, who was born five months after the return of Joseph Palmer in 1786. But that was not
the end of Tyler’s involvement with the women of the Palmer family. A modern scholar,
Megan Marshall, writing in her The Peabody Sisters, believes that Tyler laid hands on his
daughters Eliza, then aged nine, and Mary: “Almost certainly, Tyler laid hands on Eliza
herself that winter. Royall Tyler had a fondness for young girls. He had taken up with Nabby
Adams when she was just sixteen. And, unbeknownst to Eliza, he had paid a visit to her ten
year old sister, Mary, in Braintree at the same time that he was romancing their mother,
dropping in on the girl when she was alone in her great-aunt’s house… Eliza would not be
taken in by the “polluted wretch,” as she called him afterward, “who enters a worthy family
and leaves it not, till some victim falls a prey to his designs.” Eliza had seen Tyler seduce her
mother; she could feel only “terror and disgust” when his attentions turned her way. We will
never know whether Eliza managed to ward off Tyler’s predations, but the revulsion with
wh
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