Talk of the Town **Feature Story
The news items tell the story and features the TUTTLE surname. Research was done by volunteer, Linda Ziemann.
Milo R. Tuttle
Born: 1838 in New York state
Died: 24 Oct 1896 in Akron, Iowa
Aged: 56 years
Cause of death: Bright’s disease
*T*U*T*T*L*E*
Akron Tribune, October 29, 1896
In Akron, Saturday evening, October 24, 1896, of Bright’s disease, aged 56 years.
Mr. Tuttle’s death was not unexpected. He had for several years been a sufferer from the disease which resulted fatally. The record of his life shows that he was born in New York in 1838; moved to Chicago in 1865 and remained in business there for ten years; then moved to Clinton, Iowa, where he lived for nearly another decade, and then took up his residence in Akron, where he has lived for the past twelve years. He married Mrs. Jennie Bolmer in 1874 in Chicago. She survives him, but there are no children from this union.
The funeral was held last Monday from the Baptist Church, Rev. W.H. Swartz officiating. It was conducted under the auspices of Freedom Lodge, No. 434, A.F. & A.M., of which the deceased was a most worthy member, and assisted by Akron Lodge, No. 562, I.O.O.F., to which he also belonged.
A long line of Masons and Odd Fellows on foot and a procession of over fifty carriages, went to the cemetery. The impressive burial rites of the Masonic order were conducted by George Wells, acting as master, and the solemn event will long be born in recollection.
It can truthfully be said of Mr. Tuttle that “None knew him but to love him – none named him but to praise”. The milk of human kindness had never soured in his breast. He lived “with malice toward none and charity for all.”
When it shall come to the lot of us who are living to “Join the innumerable caravan which moves to the pale realms of shade” it will be well if there shall be accorded to us such genuine tokens of respect as were shown in the last sad rites bestowed upon the subject of this sketch.
Akron Tribune, Akron, Iowa, July 27, 1899
WILL IN LITIGATION
Last Testament of Milo R. Tuttle to Be Contested By Relatives and Alleged Former Wife.
What promises to be a complicated lawsuit is likely to result from the will of Milo R. Tuttle, who died in Akron, October 24, 1896.
Milo R. Tuttle came to Akron nearly fifteen years ago and engaged in the furniture business. Upon his death he left a will bequeathing all his property to his wife, Jennie, who subsequently married John N. Raish.
The property was estimated to be valued at $25,000. Since his death, two brothers, W. N. and E. N. Tuttle, and two sisters residing at Dickerson Center, N.Y. and Margary Tuttle, who claims to be the widow of Milo R. Tuttle, have come forward to claim the property.
Margary Tuttle resides at Wimooski, Vermont, and has lived there for the past twenty-nine years.
In her deposition taken at that place, she claims to have been married to Milo Tuttle about 1867. She married a man, Lorenzo Wardwell, on June 17, 1879, at Malone, N.Y., by whom she had five children, three of whom are living. She asserts that she married Wardwell two years after Tuttle left her and went West. She had one child which died in infancy. Margary claims to have married Milo Tuttle at Potsdam, N.Y., at the home of a man named Ira Preston. In her deposition she says she has lost the marriage certificate and that Milo Tuttle gave her three hundred dollars one day and bid her goodbye, leading her to believe that he was going on a trip on the road in his avocation as a peddler. From that time she never saw him again, and never made any inquiries after him until long after she was living with Wardwell. In her deposition she said that she never obtained a divorce from Tuttle.
The case will come up for trial at the September term of the district court. Zink & Roseberry, of LeMars, will look after Mrs. Raish’s interests. The law firm of Martin & Martin are also interested in the case, and during Mr. Martin’s visit east he spent considerable time looking up the interested parties there and taking depositions which will be used in the case.
Akron Tribune, April 17, 1902
TUTTLE CASE DECIDED.
Supreme Courth Sustains Lower Court’s Ruling—Mrs. Raish Gets Half the Estate.
The destruction of the court records in the great Chicago fire of the early 70’s entered into the determination of a lawsuit by the Supreme Court of Iowa, the decision in which has just been handed, down, says the Sioux City Journal. The case went up from Plymouth county three years ago.
Away back in 1868, Milo R. Tuttle, for many years a furniture dealer and farmer in Akron, Iowa, was married in the state of New York, where he lived with his wife about a year, when he suddenly disappeared. He came west to Chicago, unknown to his wife, and lived there two years. The great fire occurred during his residence there. Tuttle, soon forgot old association, fell in love with a Chicago woman and married her. They came west to Clinton, Iowa, where they lived for a few years, and then came to Akron, where they settled on a farm. They prospered and accumulated a fortune of about $25,000.
Mr. Tuttle moved to Akron in later years, and there in 1896 he died. He had during his lifetime written out a statement in which he declared his property should go to his widow, but he had never revealed the story of his former marriage to his second wife, nor to anyone else in his western home. He carried the secret to his grave with him.
Soon after his death, E. N. Tuttle, a brother; Mrs. Cornelia McComber, a sister, and another sister of the deceased, all living in the native town of the Tuttle’s in New York, commenced an action to recover their legal share of the estate of their deceased brother, claiming he had left no will. Soon afterward notice also came to the widow that a woman living in the state of Vermont would intervene in the suit which had been brought, as the former wife of Milo R. Tuttle, and that she would claim her legal one-half of the estate. The revelation was very much of a shock to the Iowa widow, for she had never known of a former marriage. She resisted the attempts of the eastern relatives of her husband to take the fortune, which she had helped him to accumulate, claiming that the written instrument which he had left was a perfect will and was so intended. The eastern people alleged it was not a will, because it had not properly been executed. They also claimed the second marriage in Chicago to have been illegal because of the fact that he had never been divorced from his New York wife.
Under these circumstances the second marriage would not be recognized and the property in the estate would pass under the statues, one-half to the legal wife and one-half to the brothers and sisters.
Representative M. J. Sweeley represented by the New York relatives and Zink & Roseberry, of LeMars, represented the Iowa widow—Mrs. Raish. Mr. Sweeley commenced a thorough investigation to discover whether there was any record of a divorce having been secured in the former marriage, and the court records in every city where Tuttle had lived were carefully examined. In Chicago, however, the records covering the period of Tuttle’s residence there were all burned in the great fire, and this made it impossible to determine if Tuttle had taken this precaution before he was married to his second wife in Chicago.
Judge Gaynor, before whom the case was tried at LeMars, held that the presumption was that Tuttle secured a divorce before he married, and so this cut the Vermont woman off entirely from sharing in the estate. Judge Gaynor also held that the written instrument left by Tuttle was neither a will nor a deed, and disregarded it. Under these circumstances he directed the property to pass as the statutes provided in cases where no will is left—to the legal wife and brothers and sisters of the deceased. The widow got one-half and the brothers and sisters the other half.
The case was taken to the supreme court on two appeals. The Vermont woman appealed because the court gave the Iowa widow one-half of the estate. The Iowa widow appealed because the court gave one-half of the estate to Tuttle’s brothers and sisters. The supreme court sustained the lower court.
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