Theodore Tilton (October 2, 1835 – May 29, 1907) was an American newspapereditor, 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.
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 man of 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 was Mr. 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]
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.
Theodore Tilton, [ca. 1859–1870]. Carte de Visite Collection, Boston Public Library.
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
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.