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Theodore Tilton(October 2, 1835 – May 29, 1907) was an Americannewspapereditor,poetandabolitionist.He was born in New York City to Silas Tilton and Eusebia Tilton (same surname). On his twentieth birthday, October 2, 1855, he marriedElizabeth Richards.Tilton's newspaper work was fully supportive of abolitionism and the Northern cause in the American Civil War.
Theodore Tilton was present atThe Southern Loyalist Conventionheld in Philadelphia in September 1866.Frederick Douglasswrites of him in his autobiography:
There was one man present who was broad enough to take in the whole situation, and brave enough to meet the duty of the hour; one who was neither afraid nor ashamed to own me as a man and a brother;one manof the purest Caucasian type, a poet and a scholar, brilliant as a writer, eloquent as a speaker, and holding a high and influential position—the editor of a weekly journal having the largest circulation of any weekly paper in the city or State of New York—and that man wasMr. Theodore Tilton.He came to me in my isolation, seized me by the hand in a most brotherly way, and proposed to walk with me in the procession.[1]
From 1860 to 1863, Tilton was the assistant ofHenry Ward Beecherat the New York periodicalThe Independent,owned byHenry Chandler Bowen.He succeeded Beecher as editor-in-chief until he was forced to resign in 1870.[2]In 1869 he gave the commencement speech for theIrving Literary Society.
In 1874 Tilton filed a complaint against Beecher for "criminal conversation"(adultery) withElizabeth Richards Tiltonand sued for a $100,000 (~$2.43 million in 2023) judgment.[3][4]
The Beecher-Tilton trial ended in a deadlocked jury. Afterwards, Tilton moved to Paris, where he lived for the rest of his life. In the 1880s, Tilton frequently played chess with a fellow American exile, ex-Confederate Secretary of StateJudah Benjamin,until the latter died in 1884.
As a poet, Tilton is famous for his 1858 poem "The King's Ring", with its famous line, "Even this shall pass away", which is the last line of each of its seven stanzas.[5]
Work referenced
editRobert Plantput Tilton's poem "The King's Ring"[6]to music, a recording of which is onBand of Joy.
Principal works
edit- Victoria C. Woodhull.A Biographical Sketch.1871
- Tempest-Tossed A Romance.1874.
- The Complete Poetical Works of Theodore Tilton in One Volume With a Preface on Ballad-Making and an Appendix on Old Norse Myths & Fables.1897.
References
edit- Applegate, Debby.The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher.New York: Doubleday, 2006.
- Fox, Richard Wightman.Trials of Intimacy Love and Loss in the Beecher-Tilton Scandal.Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
- Shaplen, Robert.Free Love: The Story of a Great American Scandal.New York: McNally Editions, 2024. Originally published in 1954 byAlfred A. KnopfasFree Love and Heavenly Sinners.
- Tilton's literary workAccessed January 25, 2008
- Specific
- ^Life and Times of Frederick Douglass(1892),p. 475
- ^Randel, William Peirce (1946).Edward Eggleston.New York: King's Crown Press. p. 111.
- ^Theodore Tilton Vs. Henry Ward Beecher: Action for Crim. Con. Tried in the City Court of Brooklyn, Chief Justice Joseph Neilson, Presiding. Volume 1.McDivitt, Campbell & Company. 1875.ISBN9780790582320.
- ^Theodore Tilton Vs. Henry Ward Beecher, Action for Crim. Con. Tried in the City Court of Brooklyn, Chief Justice Joseph Neilson, Presiding. Verbatim Report by the Official Stenographer. Volume 2.McDivitt, Campbell & Company. 1875.ISBN9780790582320.
- ^"The King's Ring" (A Poem)
- ^Tilton, Theodore (1897).The Complete Poetical Works of Theodore Tilton in One Volume: With a Preface on Ballad-making and an Appendix on Old Norse Myths & Fables.T. Fisher Unwin.
External links
edit
- Mr. Lincoln and New York: Theodore TiltonArchived2005-04-28 at theWayback Machine