Theodore Tilton
Theodore Tilton (October 2, 1835 – May 29, 1907) was an American newspaper editor, poet and abolitionist. He was born in New York City to Silas Tilton and Eusebia Tilton (same surname). On his twentieth birthday, October 2, 1855, he married Elizabeth Richards. Tilton's newspaper work was fully supportive of abolitionism and the Northern cause in the American Civil War.
Theodore Tilton was present at The Southern Loyalist Convention held in Philadelphia in September 1866. Frederick Douglass writes of him in his autobiography:
From 1860 to 1871, Tilton was the assistant of Henry Ward Beecher. He gave the 1869 commencement speech for the Irving Literary Society.
In 1874 Tilton filed a complaint against Beecher for "criminal conversation" (adultery) with Elizabeth Richards Tilton and sued for a $100,000 (~$2.43 million in 2023) judgment.[2][3]
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 fellow American exile (but ex-Confederate) Judah Benjamin, until the latter died in 1884.
As a poet, Tilton is famous for his masterpiece 'Even This Shall Pass Away', a poem that talks about how everything in life is limited and will end.
Work referenced[edit]
Robert Plant put Tilton's 1858 poem "The King's Ring: Even This Shall Pass Away"[4] to music, a recording of which is on Band of Joy.