The Coquette, or, The History of Eliza Wharton / A Novel: Founded on Fact

by Hannah Webster Foster

In conflicting statements, it is difficult to determine the precise year of the marriage of Mr. Edwards, whether before or after the death of "Eliza Wharton," although it may have been long before, even as one of his biographers has it, and that recklessness and extravagance may have lifted him to a too fearful height from the calm Eden of love and honor, till he at length compromised the influence of both to baser avarice.

That he married Frances Ogden, of Elizabeth-town, New Jersey, for his first wife, is the fact, and the date given is 1769. Yet the ciphers may be questioned, I think, as it would make him but nineteen years of age at the time of the event, besides other considerations which make it appear more doubtful still.

He was, however, as has been already stated, the eleventh and youngest child of Rev. Jonathan Edwards, and was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, Sabbath. His biographer has been particularly faithful in thus recording it, as if the hallowed influences of the Sabbath upon birth have a bearing on subsequent life, and were in his case either strikingly marked or missed. He was born, then, Sabbath, April 8, 1750, and was cousin, in good or evil, to the notorious Aaron Burr. He was also brother to Rev. Jonathan Edwards, president of Union College.

His mother, Sarah Pierrepont, was of aristocratic origin, and the daughter of Rev. James Pierrepont, and granddaughter of John Pierrepont, of Roxbury, from whom descended Rev. John Pierpont, the celebrated poet and divine of our own time. The Pierrepont family was a branch of the family of the Duke of Kingston, (Pierrepont being the family name;) and the mother of Mr. Edwards was thus cousin-german to Mary Pierrepont, (Lady Mary Wortley Montague.)

Through his whole ancestral line we trace the "laying on of hands" in the most conspicuous as in the divinest order; and thus might he be truly called a child of prayer and consecration. What pity that his biographer should have been compelled to record, "The most remarkable feature of his character was his unbridled licentiousness"! But we cannot drop the curtain here. We would relieve the picture by this somewhat lighter shade. "His intellectual energies were gigantic. As a pleader and a determined and artful advocate, he had few equals. Hence, as a lawyer, he scarcely ever lost a case in his whole practice." An amusing anecdote is related of him in his professional career.

"In an insurance case, the evidence of which was strongly against him, he went in disguise to New London, where the witnesses, mostly sailors, resided. In a loafer-like swagger he proposed and secured bets from every material evidence in the case, and thus disqualified them from bearing testimony, on the ground that they were interested witnesses." In his old age he married his housekeeper, and closed an eventful and unblessed life at Bridgeport, April 14, 1826. 'Tis well to memorize him here, and thus register birth and death on the very page that records the most mysterious chapter of his history.

Let us return to unite and conclude our story. In June, 1788, a female of uncommon beauty of person, yet with an oppressed and melancholy bearing, suddenly appeared at the old Bell Tavern in Danvers, Massachusetts, (a drawing of which is here introduced.) She was habited in black, and was seldom seen abroad, never except alone, and at twilight, when she was observed to wander as far as the old burying ground hard by, and there to pause at its entrance, gazing long and earnestly upon its silent, scattered mounds, at length retracing her steps with the same melancholy gait and air.

Here she remained nearly a month, discovering to none her real name or situation. She passed her time in writing, and occasionally playing upon a guitar, which was the only companion of her solitude. After remaining there about two weeks a chaise was seen to pause before the door, upon the lintel of which had secretly been traced in chalk, as it afterwards appeared, the letters "E.W." A gentleman hastily alighted, and was also observed through the darkness of the evening to examine the casing of the door, and then return to the chaise and drive rapidly away.

The opinion was, by those who were cognizant of the fact, that this was a secret, preconcerted sign by which the lover should recognize the place of her retreat; and being too faintly drawn, through the darkness of the night he failed to discover the characters.

From this time, however, the spirits of the stranger evidently sunk; and in two weeks more birth and death had followed each other, and the grave had closed over all.