Edith and Mortlake
In 1927, at the age of 66, Edith bought the home built by her great grandfather Daniel Tyler II. The house was called Mortlake Manor. It was built in the 1760s and located in Brooklyn, Connecticut.
Mortlake Manor stood adjacent to the Israel Putnam Monument that was dedicated May 29, 1790. Putnam fought at Bunker Hill along with Edith’s great grandfather. It was Putnam who said from Breed's Hill, “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!” Edith’s family was related to Putnam by marriage.
After buying the property Edith changed the name from Mortlake Manor to Mortlake House. She then turned it into her personal roadside country inn that mostly operated during the depression.
Edith established what was called an “Approved Wayside Station.” In the 1920s Wayside Stations were a network of gas stations, inns, restaurants and motor courts that offered road travelers the assurance of quality.
Edith welcomed travelers for eight years from 1927 to the mid-1930s. It closed not long after she broke her hip in 1935. In the late 1960s Mortlake House was torn down and replaced by a post office.
The original Mortlake Manor was built in England in 1086 and turned into the country home of the archbishops of Canterbury until 1536 when It was gifted to Thomas Cromwell by Henry VIII. It was a stopping off point for those traveling to and from the palaces at Richmond and Hampton Court. By the 18th century it had fallen into ruins