Bette - BETE1

Bette - BETE1

African descent

Enslaved

Female

Cutchogue

Joshua Tuthill

Communion: Cutchogue, Southold’s First Colony. Wayland Jefferson (1940: Colonial Press Inc.); page 143.
Ira Tuthill Obituary: Long Island Traveler, June 9, 1873.

Reverend Whitaker described Betty as "a blind slave of Joshua Tuthill, the great grandfather of the present Deacon, Ira Tuthill...Not only mentally and spiritually, but also physically was she a superior woman, for her weight was about three hundred pounds. During the forty years she lived in her blindness after she became fifty years of age—for she died fifty years ago at the age of ninety—the scene of her daily labor, and of her Christian culture and training, was chiefly in the kitchen of Deacon Tuthill's parents." [Excerpt from obituary of Elymas Reeve written by Dr. Epher Whitaker, April 18, 1870; Suffolk Times clipping in the Whitaker Collection, Southold Free Library.]

In 1757, admitted to full communion in church.

She was called "Blind Betty" later in life and died ca. 1820 at age 90.