Tilton, NH and the Tilton Family
Introduction
Tilton Manufacturing Company boasted sales of both the Victor index and the Franklin typewriter. For a time they shared an office with the Franklin Typewriter Company; the successor was the Victor Typewriter Company, which kept the name of Tilton’s star typewriter, but sold a standard machine instead of an index. As we discovered while researching for our article “Rethinking the Franklin”, not much else seems to be known about the Tilton Manufacturing Company. The name “Tilton” seems to make an appearance elsewhere in the typewriter world too. There was a Charles E. Tilton who invented a typewriter that was likely never manufactured, but was he linked to the manufacturing company that bore the same name? One fine day in 2011, the Australian typewriter blogger Robert Messenger attempted to track down the inventor C. E. Tilton (Messenger (b), 2011), and shared one possible theory on who that man was, but the evidence provided left me wondering whether further information could be discovered to strengthen his theory. I wanted undeniable links that would lead to the man’s identity, and was curious if I could link C. E. Tilton to the manufacturing company. Tilton also happens to be the name of a New Hampshire town, as Messenger pointed out. The company seems to have had no dealings there, but the lead was a good avenue for exploration since I lacked a proper breadcrumb trail otherwise. Furthermore, the town happened to be named by the Hon. Charles Elliott Tilton. Although likely not the same man, he was Messenger’s first lead since his name matches that of the inventor, so I humbly followed in the footsteps the great Robert Messenger, and retraced his findings to start off on my own journey. And boy was it a journey!
I hereby submit to you a four-part series outlining the discoveries made along the way of hunting down the answer to the question, who and what was Tilton? Within these four articles, you will find the story of the Tilton Manufacturing Company and the men who founded it, will discover the identity of Mr. Charles E. Tilton and his contribution to the typewriter world, and will unearth an elusive link between the World index and the Victor index typewriters. In Part I, we explore Tilton, New Hampshire and the prominent Tilton family who named the town. Part II shares the story of two young druggists who dove into the world of stationery, which will become the mechanism by which they could operate in the typewriter world. If you want to skip right to solving the mysteries, Part III brings it all to light, starting with the birth of the Tilton Manufacturing Company, and ending with the history of the World index typewriter. Part IV wraps up the story by sharing what happened when turn-of-the-century capitalists moved money between their various enterprises, and concludes with the final days of the stars of our story. I hope you enjoy the ride!
The Research Begins
The first step was to search for any indisputable information about the Tilton Mfg. Co., and so I started with the company address. There were several locations associated with Tilton, so I began with the infamous Boston fire that burned the factory at 113 Purchase and 50 Hartford Streets. The factory was shared between Franklin Typewriter Co. and Tilton Mfg. Co., and after further review, I discovered that it was shared by a third company in 1888: Thorp & Adams Mfg. Co. (American Stationer, 1888; Wright & Potter, 1890). In 1884 through 1886, a company with a similar name, Thorp Mfg. Co., had been located in the same building (American Stationer, 1888; Girls, 1885). This provided my first new lead: the name “Thorp” seemed to be important to this story, and indeed it was. Using this name to re-search through old newspapers (thanks to my favorite reference, Newspapers.com), I finally came across a smoking gun after all these years: “The Tilton Manufacturing Company has been organized at Portland . . . President Elliott G. Thorp, Boston; Treasurer, Fred G. Tilton, Boston. The business to be prosecuted is selling inventions patents and merchandise. Certificate filed, Aug. 18, 1888.” (New Corporations, 1888). After all the searches over the years, I’m still not sure how that snippet was missed. It all seemed so simple! At last, the mystery was solved . . . or was it? The name “Tilton” must have been from this Fred G. Tilton, but who was this man? Did he have anything to do with the inventor Charles E. Tilton, the millionaire Charles E. Tilton, and/ or the town of Tilton? And who was this President Thorp? What does Thorp & Adams Mfg. Co. have to do with Franklin Typewriter Co. or Tilton Mfg. Co., and why are they all in the same building in 1888 through 1891 (Boston Almanac, 1891, p. 212; Boston, 1891)?
And so the journey began. We will begin at the beginning, in 1869, when one Dr. Elliott G. Thorp earns his medical degree from the University of Michigan, and decides to open a little pharmacy with his friend, Mr. Fred G. Tilton, in the little town of Tilton, New Hampshire . . . but wait, Tilton, NH, you say? Yes, here we have a tie to the town, which happened to have been named that same year, so on second thought, let’s start there.
Tilton, New Hampshire
Tilton, NH was originally the southern part of the town of Sanbornton, NH, referred to as Sanbornton Bridge. Since we’re more interested in the company, I chose to share here a concise and sufficient summary of the town from Wikipedia (“Tilton, New Hampshire,” 2024):
In 1869, Sanbornton Bridge was set off and incorporated as Tilton, named in honor of Nathaniel Tilton (1726–1814), whose great-grandson Charles E. Tilton (1827–1901) was the owner of textile mills and the community's wealthiest citizen. Nathaniel Tilton established an iron foundry and the area's first hotel, the Dexter House. Charles E. Tilton donated many statues to the town, a unique feature, . . . Charles E. Tilton also donated what is perhaps the most notable landmark in the area, the hilltop Memorial Arch, located in the neighboring town of Northfield, across the Winnipesaukee River from the center of Tilton. The Roman arch replica was built in the late 1800s as a memorial to his ancestors.
Here we see that Charles E. Tilton lent the name of this great-grandfather to the town, fixed it up, and left his legacy to this day. Another source indicates that in 1860, one Jeremiah C. Tilton was presiding over the Sanbornton town hall meeting during which the town folks decided they would split the land and form Tilton, but the resolution didn’t pass right away. It was during a subsequent meeting that the town decided to let Charles Elliot Tilton choose a new name for their part of the town. It is said that Jeremiah lent many of the suggestions on how to beautify the town (Cross, 1905; Hurd, 1885), although note that it was Charles who made the donations of statues and other landmarks.
The Tilton Family
Alright, so why do I care about Charles Elliot Tilton, who Messenger has already indicated is not likely the inventor of the Tilton typewriter (Messenger (b), 2011), or Jeremiah C. Tilton, when we already know that it was Fred G. Tilton who helped to form the Tilton Mfg. Co.? As I retraced the life of Charles Elliot Tilton in detail, I discovered that Charles had married a woman named Louisa Peabody Tilton on January 4, 1856 (NH Marriage Records, 1856). At first I thought the record was citing her married name, but became confused as other married women in the same records were written with their maiden names, not their married names. I slowly came to realize that Tilton was both Louisa's married and maiden name - strange coincidence. It turns out, Louisa was the sister of Jeremiah C. Tilton (Cross, 1905), and these three were, in fact, cousins. Jeremiah C. and Louisa P. were the children of Jeremiah Tilton and Nancy Carter (Cross, 1905). Charles Elliot Tilton was the child of Samuel Tilton and Myra Ames (Hurd, 1885). Samuel and Jeremiah were brothers, sons of Jeremiah Tilton and Mehitable Hayes (Pickwick, 2013). This last Jeremiah’s father was none other than Nathaniel Tilton (Hurd, 1885), after whom the town was named.
It is worth noting that it was pretty common to marry your first cousin around that time. Given that Charles’ great grandfather had been one of the founding members of Sanbornton, and Charles proved that he was proud of that fact by requesting the town to name itself after his great grandfather, it would not be surprising if he, the wealthiest citizen in the town, had wanted to keep his status and wealth in the family, regardless of whether he had actually fallen in love with his cousin. Furthermore, first cousin marriage wasn’t outlawed in New Hampshire until the 1860s (Mekouar, 2019), so the union would have been legitimate.
Now, Jeremiah Carter Tilton, Charles’ cousin and Louisa’s brother, had married a woman named Emily Morrill on January 3, 1843, and they had four children: Frank Lucien, born September 1846, Fred George, born February 1849, Estelle, born July 1854, who sadly died only a year later on August 23, 1855, and Charles Edwin, born January 1857 (Cross, 1905; U.S. Census Bureau, 1900; C. P., 2021; Sears, 2020). And here we come to the reason that we care about Charles Elliot Tilton: he happens to be the uncle and cousin once removed of Jeremiah and Emily’s three sons, at least one of whom you have already met, Fred George. So, the co-founder of the Tilton Mfg. Co. was a direct descendant of the man after whom the town of Tilton, NH, was named!
Jeremiah C. was a wool manufacturer. He learned the trade from his father, and once he mastered the business, formed a firm called J & J C Tilton. He was also part of the militia for a long time, working his way up the ranks to eventually earn the rank of colonel, like his grandfather, Colonel Jeremiah Tilton. It seems that at least by 1860, the business and/or his time in service was lucrative enough to maintain a family of five, a servant from New Zealand named Sarah Evans, and her 2 year old son Charles (U.S. Census Bureau, 1860). During the United States Civil War (1861-1865), Jeremiah C. was Commissary of Subsistence, and his oldest son, Frank, acted as clerk for his father on the front line (Frank L. Tilton, 1902). Sometime during and/or after the war, Jeremiah also served as a railroad commissioner.
It seems that his son left the front lines pretty quickly. In 1862, Frank moved to New York to work at a bank owned by his uncles, A. and C. E. Tilton, for three years (Frank L. Tilton, 1902). In 1865, he moved out to Denver, CO, to manage a store also owned by his uncles. It appears that in June, while his Uncle Charles went on to Denver, Frank stopped over in Salt Lake City, UT (Martin, 1865), which may be where he met his future wife. He worked in Denver for a couple of years, and then it seems the railroad bug caught him. In 1867, General Grenville Dodge, who had been a prominent figure fighting for the Union during the Civil War, had men cut the Union Pacific Railroad through Wyoming on its path out west. The camp General Dodge had formed in 1865 when he first saw the site, and the resulting area where the men set up shop to work on the railroad, was organized into the city of Cheyenne (History of Cheyenne, 2024). This is where Frank moved in 1867 (Frank L. Tilton, 1902), and it seems he beckoned his younger brother to join him. Fred was 18 when he moved out to join his brother that fall (Frank L. Tilton, 1902). They worked along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad and made their mark on history.
Around 1868 they moved on to California. After some time there, they moved back to Wyoming, this time to Evanston, where they “conducted a bank for one year” (Frank L. Tilton, 1902). Around 1870, the two finally moved back east (Frank L. Tilton, 1902). Their youngest brother Charles Edwin was still only 13 years old in 1870 and was living with his folks in Tilton, NH (U.S. Census Bureau, 1870). Although they had come home, it seems that Frank wasn’t quite settled yet; he continued to travel back and forth between the east and the west, at least in the first part of the 1870s. Around this time, he owned a saloon in Utah (Memorial, 1872), and acted as a notary public in Cheyenne, WY (County Officers, 1874). His travels couldn’t have been easy. In January 1872, he is reported to be stuck after a snow blockade had barred passengers from Corinne, UT, to the east (Jottings About Town, 1872).
On January 23, 1871, Jeremiah C. was appointed postmaster of Tilton, NH, but he did not hold the post for long. Sadly, on March 12, 1872, Jeremiah C. Tilton passed away (Sears, 2020). This started a new era in the Tilton family as the next generation took their place at the head. On May 31, 1872, while in Utah, Frank married Rebecca Martin, an English-born 20-year-old young woman (Mrs. Frank L. Tilton, 1901), and on September 25, 1873, Fred, listed as a druggist, married 21-year old Emma A. Ford of Concord, NH (NH Marriage Records, 1873; Cross, 1905). Meanwhile, the young Charles Edwin was coming of age, just having turned 16 years old that January. It is worth noting that the town decided to backfill Jeremiah C.’s position as postmaster on July 15, 1872, with George W. Tilton, who was likely Jeremiah’s cousin through his father’s brother, James P. Tilton (Hurd, 1885; Family Tree of John Tilton, n. d). More on why this may be important later, because this is where we will pause the story and end Part I.
So, there you have it, the origins of the Tilton family, in particular the Tilton brothers, one of whom goes on to co-found the Tilton Mfg. Co., and their link to the little town of Tilton, NH. In Part II, we will encounter Dr. Elliott G. Thorp and the world of stationery, which will eventually lead him and the Tilton brothers to the wonderful world of typewriters.
References
Due to the length of the reference list for this four part series, it has been posted separately. Please see the article titled "Discovering Tilton, References" for a complete list of all sources you will encounter in the text, and from which the pictures were pulled.
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