- REV. H. C. TILTON - Few Methodist ministers were better known
in Wisconsin than Rev.
- Hezekiah C. TILTON, and the announcement of his death carried
sorrow to many hearts. He had been quite ill for nearly a year,
and for many months there had been but little, if any, hope for
his restoration to health. He died at his residence in Janesville
on the 26th of March, 1879. His naturally strong constitution
battled nobly against the grim messenger, but it finally had
to succumb, and after many months of severe pain, through all
which he bore up with Christian fortitude and hope, he peacefully
passed from time to eternity, and his spirit is at rest.
- Rev. H. C. TILTON, was a native of the State of Maine, and
was born August 30, 1818. He
- prepared for the Methodist ministry, and entered the Maine
Conference in 1841. He remained in that State till 1857, and,
during his ministrations there, was stationed at Mount Desert,
Deer Island, Steuben, North Penobscot, North Bucksport, Frankfort,
Hampden, Bangor, Rockland and Damanscotta. In 1857, he came to
Wisconsin, and at once took prominent position as an able pulpit
orator, and in this State has been stationed at Summerfield and
Asbury Churches, Milwaukee; at the First Methodist and Court
Street Churches, Janesville; at Fond du Lac, Appleton and Whitewater.
He became Presiding Elder of the Racine District, and in, 1864,
represented a district in Walworth County in the Assembly, in
which body he became a leading and influential member. In the
fall of 1861, Mr. TILTON was commissioned as Chaplain of the
Thirteenth Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteers, but failing health
compelled him to resign his place in August, 1862. He contracted
disease during his service, from which he never fully recovered.
We clip the concluding paragraphs of a notice of Mr. TILTON,
from the Janesville Gazette, with which a son of the deceased
is editorially connected:
His last appointment in the ministry was at Whitewater. He had
served his allotted time, and
- was urged to go to Oshkosh, but his declining health admonished
him that it was best to cease from his labor a while, at least,
and having assumed a superannuated relation, he removed to Janesville
in 1876, and in the spring of that year was appointed by Gov.
Ludington a member of the State Board of Charities and Reform
for the term of three years. He was not only an active member
of the Board but a very able one. Among all the officials connected
with the institutions of Wisconsin, there were none more devoted
to the welfare of the State, or more thoroughly identified with
the interests of our institutions than Mr. TILTON. From early
manhood to the last year of his life, Mr. TILTON was an uncompromising
foe to intemperance. He was a powerful advocate of total abstinence,
and, by his speeches, sermons and writings, did much for the
cause in which he took so deep an interest. In 1875, he was nominated
for Governor of the State by the Prohibitionists, but he declined
the honor, as he did not believe in coupling the temperance question
with politics; and again, he could not think that any substantial
good could come of such a political movement.
- During the thirty-five years Mr. TILTON was connected to
the ministry, he held a high place
- in the esteem of his brethren. He was not only an indefatigable,
and intensely in earnest, in doing the work of his Master, but
in church discipline and government, on all questions of finance
and those of a legal character, his opinions were almost regarded
as law; and hence by virtue of his zeal, his business capacity
and his executive ability, he became one of the first men in
the Conference. His death was a severe loss to the church, as
well as to the community in which he was known and honored. The
afflicted family consists of a wife, two sons - Henry A., of
Chicago, and Howard W., city editor of the Gazette - and
a daughter, Jennie.
-
- Taken from "History of Rock County Wis." (c)1879,
pp. 439-440.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
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