Elisabet Wittfooth was the daughter of the tobacco factory owner Thomas Tottie (d. 1724) and Christina Schönman in Stockholm, and moved to Åbo in Finland after her marriage in 1737 to the Finnish merchant shipowner Gustaf Adolf Wittfooth (d. 1758).
From 1758 to 1777 she managed the city hall restaurant of Åbo, the Stadskällaren, (for the last seven years in partnership with Anna Elisabeth Baer): she stopped managing it in 1777, and owned the privilege until 1787.
The Stadskällaren was very successful, being the centre of the students and soldiers of Åbo.
She worked with the merchant Carl Ekenbom, whom she credited in her will for always "assisting" her, and whom she named guardian of her middle son Adam.
[citation needed] During the Theatre War in 1790, the war lugger Tumlaren was gifted to the royal fleet of King Gustav III of Sweden by a group of female merchants (referred to as 'Merchant Widows') of the city of Åbo, including Anna Elisabeth Baer and Elisabeth Wittfooth.