Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/180

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Iluut (Paris salon, IS9'2: Cliicago, 1893); Foot- bitll Players (\S9'3); the Plielan fountain erected in San Francisco in honor of the admission of California as a state (1897);the monument totlie '• Mechanics of San Francisco " (1900) and a mon- ument to the dead California Volunteers of the Spanish War (1903). He is the author of contri- butions to the Orerhuid Monthly and to other mapiizines.

TILDEN, Samuel Jones, statesman, was born in New Lebanon. Columbia county, N.Y., Feb. 9. 1814; son of Elam and Polly Y. (Jones) Til- den; grantlsou of John Tilden, who founded New Lebanon, N.Y.; great-grandson of Isaac Tilden (b. 1729). and a de- scendant of Nathaniel and Lydia Tilden, who emigrated from Tenterden. Kent,

Eiigliiiid. in March, 1034. and settled in Scituate, Mass. Samuel Jones Tilden began his political career in 1832, when eighteen years old, and an address by him was approved by Van Buren, and published as a cam- paign document in the Albany Argus. He matriculated at Yale in 1832 and changed to the University of the City of New York, where he was a student, 1833-3-1. He delivered numeroas political speeches in the campaign of 1836 and 1840, replying in the latter canvass to a speech of U.S. Senator Tallmage. His speech at Lebanon, Oct. 3, 1840, on cur- rency, prices, and wages and a history of the United States bank was used as a campaign doc- ument. He was admitted to the bar in 1841, and soon established a large practice in New York city. He edited the Morning News in 1844; was a member of the state assembly, 1845- 46, and delegate to the constitutional convention in 1846. He was the nominee for attorney-gen- eral on the Democratic ticket in 1855; sustained the prosecution of the war against secession, 1861- 65, but did not favor the methods of the Repub- lican administration, which he said were un- constitutional. In 1868 he became the acknowl- edged leader of the Democratic party by virtue of his position as chairman of the Democratic state committee; and as a member of the state as- sembly he rigorously opposed the Tweed Ring in New York city, and was largely responsible for its subserjuent disbandment. and for the prosecution of its organizers. He was the Dem- ocratic candidate for governor of New York

in 1874, and was elected over Gov. Jolin A. Dix, by a plurality of 50,000. During his ad- ministration the new capitol at Albany was begun. In 1876 he was made the Democratic nominee for President at the national conven- tion iield at St. Louis, June 28, and in the pop- ular election, held November 7, the electo'S finally accredited to Hayes and Wheeler by the electoral commission received 4,033,950, and the electors for Tilden and Hendricks, 4,284,885, votes, the popular plurality for Tilden and Hendricks being 250,935. The election returns from the states of Oregon, Lousiana, Florida and South Carolina, were contested by the Democrats, and an electoral commission was provided by act of congress, composed of five associate justices of the U.S. suprenie court, five U.S. senators and five representatives in congress. The commis- sion, politically divided, 8 Republicans and 7 Democrats, declared in favor of the Republican electors, which gave Hayes 185 electoral votes, against 184 for Tilden. Mr. Tilden declined re- nomination in 1880 and 1884, but continued to be first among the leaders of the National De- mocracy. He was one of the founders of the New York Bar association; a member of the council of the University of the City of New York, 1872- 86, and was given the honorary degree of LL.D, by that university in 1867. His will, leaving about $7,000,000 of his fortune of about $8,500, 000 to the establishment and endowment of a free public library for the city of New York, was contested by his relatives, and at the close of a long and bitter litigation certain of his heirs con- sented to the use of about $2,860,000 as a founda- tion for the Ne%v York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, Tilden foundations. His name in Class M, Rulers and Statesmen, received six votes for a place in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, New York university', October, 1900, and was twenty-fiftli in the class of tiiirty-seven names, presented for consideration. He died at his country seat, "Graystoue," Westchester county, N.Y., Aug. 4, 1886.

TILESTON, Mary Wilder, compiler, was born in Salem, Mass., Aug. 20, 1843; daughter of Caleb and Mary Wilder (White) Foote; grand- daughter of Caleb and Martha (West) Foote and of Daniel Appleton and Mary (Wilder) White, and a descendant of Pasco Foote. who had a grant of land in Salem in 1646. She attended a private school in Salem, and was married, Sept. 25,1865, to John Boies Tileston, son of Edmund Pitt and Sarah McLean (Boies) Tileston of Dor- chester Mass., who died. Jan. 24.1898. Slie be- came known as a compiler of liymns. and of se- lections from religious writers. Her publications include: Qniet /7oMr.<?. a collection of poenis(1874; 2d ser., 1880); Selections from Mm-ciis Aiirelius