TILDEN, Samuel Jones, statesman, born in New Lebanon, New York, 9 February, 1814; died at his countryhouse, Graystone, Westchester County, New York, 4 August, 1886. The name of an ancestor, Nathaniel Tilden of Tenterden, yeoman, and that of Lydia, his wife, with seven children and seven servants, head the list of "such persons as embarked themselves in the good ship called the 'Hercules,' . . . to be therein transported to the plantation called New England in America," from the port of Sand with, England, in March, 1634. This Nathaniel Tilden had been mayor of Tenterden, as had been his uncle John before him, and as was his cousin John after him. He settled with his family at Scituate, whence the second generation of Tildens migrated to Lebanon, Connecticut. To Isaac Tilden, the great-grandfather of Samuel J., was born at this place, in 1729, a son named John, who settled in what was afterward called New Lebanon, Columbia County, New York Samuel J.'s father, Elam, the youngest of John Tilden's seven children, was born in 1781, and in 1802 married Polly Y. Jones, a descendant of William Jones, lieutenant-governor of the colony of New Haven. Eight children were born of this union, of whom Samuel J. was the fifth. The boy early developed great activity of mind and a remarkable command of language. His father, a farmer, who also carried on a mercantile business, was an intimate friend of Martin Van Buren, and the political controversy of the time was part of the very atmosphere of the Tilden household. In his eighteenth year Samuel prepared an address, which was adopted as a party manifesto by the Democrats, in regard to the issues of the pending state election. In the same year he entered Yale college, but almost at the outset his studies were interrupted by feeble health. He resumed them in 1834, when he entered the University of New York. Here he completed his academic education, and devoted himself to the study of law. While in college he wrote a series of papers in defence of President Van Buren's policy in regard to the United States bank. He made a more elaborate plea for the independent treasury system, as opposed to the union of bank and state, in a speech delivered to his neighbors at New Lebanon in October, 1840 On his admission to the bar, Mr. Tilden began practice in New York city, but continued to take an active part in politics. He was elected to the assembly in 1845, and while there was chairman of a committee appointed to inquire into the causes of the anti-rent disorders, and the masterly report on the whole subject of the great leasehold estates and their tenants was almost entirely his work. He was a member of the Constitutional convention of 1846. The three most memorable cases in which he was employed as a lawyer were the trial of the contested election of his friend, Azariah C. Flagg, as comptroller of New York city, the opposition on the part of the heirs of the murdered Dr. Burdell to Mrs. Cunningham's application for letters of administration on his estate, and the defence of the Pennsylvania coal company to the claim of the Delaware and Hudson canal company for payment of extra tolls. The hearing of the last-named consumed seventy days, and Mr. Tilden's argument in the ease was a marvel of analytical ingenuity and constructive ability. From 1855, more than half of the great railway corporations north of the Ohio and between the Hudson and Missouri rivers were at some time clients of Mr. Tilden's. He was the author of many of the plans of reorganization that were rendered necessary by the early financial necessities of these companies, He took part in the Free-soil revolt within the Democratic party in 1848. In 1851 he made a strong plea for respect to the constitution in dealing with the question of improvements on the state canals. In 1855 he was the candidate for attorney-general on the ticket of the " Soft-Shell" Democrats. Throughout, the civil war he maintained that the struggle against the Confederacy could be successfully waged without resorting to extra-constitutional modes of action. By 1868 Mr. Tilden had definitely assumed the leadership of the Democratic party in New York state. To the enactment of what was known as" the Tweed charter" of 1870, which confirmed the control of a corrupt ring over the government and revenues of New York city, Mr. Tilden offered the most determined opposition. To the side-partners of Tweed, the almost equally notorious persons who were engaged, by the aid of courts, in plundering the stockholders of the Erie railway, Mr. Tilden had made himself similarly obnoxious. He was one of the founders of the Bar association, which was an organized protest against the perversion of the machinery of justice accomplished by judges George G. Barnard and Albert, Cardozo and their allies. In the impeachment proceedings against these judges in 1872 Mr. Tilden's was the directing mind, and it was mainly for this purpose that he agreed to serve as a member of the assembly. On the exposure of the methods of plunder of the Tweed ring, which was made in the columns of the New York" Times" in July, 1871 Mr. Tilden undertook, through an examination of the bank-accounts of the chief members of the combination, a legal demonstration of the share of the spoil received by each, and the tables presented with his affidavit furnished the basis of the civil and criminal proceedings brought against the ring and its agents. He threw all his energy into the prosecution of suits in the name of the state against the men who had seized the machinery of local justice, and he resisted successfully the efforts of the ring and the politicians in its service to retain their hold on the state Democratic organization in the autumn of 18'71. In 1874 he was the Democratic candidate for governor, and was elected by a plurality of 50,000 over Governor John A. Dix. His special message to the legislature on the extravagance and dishonesty that had characterized the management of the canals made a deep impression. During his administration the new capitol building at Albany was begun (see illustration), which has cost $17,000,000, but is not finished In June, 1876, the National Democratic convention, assembled at St. Louis, nominated him for the presidency. (For an account of the election and its results, see HAYES, RUTHERFORD B.) As finally declared, the electoral vote was 185 for Mr. Hayes and 184 for Sir. Tilden. The popular vote, as counted, gave Tilden 4,284,265" Hayes, 4,033,295" Cooper, 81,737" Smith, 9,522. Mr. Tilden was opposed to the electoral commission, declaring his belief in "the exclusive jurisdiction of the two houses to count the electoral votes by their own servants and under such instruction as they might deem proper to give." Prom that time till the end of his life he was first among the leaders of the national Democracy, and the pressure for his renomination in 1880 became so great that his friends, who knew his fixed determination not to be a candidate, appealed to him for a formal announcement of his resolution, addressed to the delegates from his own state. Four years later this declaration had to be repeated. His last important contribution to the history of his time was a communication addressed to John G. Carlisle, speaker of the house of representatives, in regard to the urgent necessity of liberal appropriations for such a system of coast defences as would place the United States in a position of comparative safety against naval attack. Under the provisions of Mr. Tilden's will, the greater portion of his fortune (which was estimated at $5,000,000) was devoted to public uses, the chief of which was the establishment and endowment in the city of New York of a free public library" but the will was contested by his relatives. He never married. His life was written by Theodore P. Cook (New York, 1876), and his writings edited by John Bigelow (2 vols., 1885) Mr. Tilden's elder brother, MOSES Y. (1812 '76), was a member of the legislature in 1869, and became known by his persistent opposition to the Tweed ring. With his brother he built the Lebanon Springs railroad.