Speaker 1: You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Listener discretion advised. On August twentieth, eighteen seventy four, Theodore
Speaker 1: Tilton strode into the Brooklyn City Court, his golden hair
Speaker 1: glowing in the sunlight. Nearly a head, taller than most
Speaker 1: men and famous to boot, Tilton drew attention wherever he went.
Speaker 1: But today he wasn't trying to be recognized. He was
Speaker 1: here on private business. Private for now, at least. Tilton
Speaker 1: was in the courthouse to find a notary public. The
Speaker 1: day before, his lawyers had drafted a civil complaint on
Speaker 1: his behalf against his former boss. Now Tilton needed to
Speaker 1: swear to the truth of his complaint in order for
Speaker 1: his suit to move forward. It wouldn't be easy for him.
Speaker 1: The contents of the complaint were humiliating. To put it mildly.
Speaker 1: In the complaint, Tilton alleged that his former boss had
Speaker 1: engaged in an affair with his wife. The affair had
Speaker 1: ruined Tilton's marriage, his family, his reputation, and his career.
Speaker 1: He had suffered so greatly. The complaint claimed that he
Speaker 1: now asked for one hundred thousand dollars in compensation more
Speaker 1: than two and a half million in today's money. It
Speaker 1: was an enormous sum, yes, but the wrongs that Tilton
Speaker 1: alleged were certainly grievous. After all, he and his wife
Speaker 1: Elizabeth had once shared a happy home, filled with laughter
Speaker 1: and bolstered by their shared faith than God. But now
Speaker 1: every day at home for Tilton was torture and he
Speaker 1: was losing his faith. Rumors of his wife's affair were
Speaker 1: already circulating, with competing narratives popping up, and Tilton wanted
Speaker 1: the chance to tell his story. The legal system was
Speaker 1: his last resort. What Theodore Tilton started that day, as
Speaker 1: he swore to the truth of his complaint, would snowball
Speaker 1: into one of the nineteenth century's most shocking trials, one
Speaker 1: with implications for not just Tilton, but for all of
Speaker 1: New York City, the United States, and even the Christian Church.
Speaker 1: Because the man that Tilton had just publicly accused of
Speaker 1: quote wrongfully and wickedly seducing his wife was a man
Speaker 1: of God. He was none other than the most famous
Speaker 1: preacher and perhaps the most famous man in all of America,
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher. Welcome to History on Trial. I'm your
Speaker 1: host Mira Hayward. This week Theodore Tilton v. Henry Ward Beecher,
Speaker 1: the man who allegedly had had an affair with Theodore
Speaker 1: Tilton's wife. Henry Ward Beecher was born in eighteen thirteen
Speaker 1: in Connecticut. His father, Lyman Beecher, was one of the
Speaker 1: pre eminent clergymen of the day. Few who knew young
Speaker 1: Henry thought that he was destined to follow in his
Speaker 1: father's footsteps. Lyman Beecher was a Protestant of the old kind,
Speaker 1: steeped in the puritanical Calvinist tradition. He raised his ten
Speaker 1: children on a steady diet of fire and brimstone, impressing
Speaker 1: upon them the idea that they were inherently sinful and
Speaker 1: likely destined for damnation. Despite his rigid religious beliefs, Lyman
Speaker 1: was also a deeply loving father who encouraged his children
Speaker 1: to develop empathy and compassion for others. All the Beacher
Speaker 1: siblings were well educated, including the girls, and the dinner
Speaker 1: table hosted lively debates over politics and theology. Henry Ward
Speaker 1: Beecher chafed against this moralistic, competitive environment. He was a
Speaker 1: rambunctious child who struggled with both a stutter and an
Speaker 1: incurable impulse to break the rules. He knew that his
Speaker 1: father wanted him to enter the clergy, but Beecher felt
Speaker 1: deeply unsure of his own faith. Despite his doubts, he
Speaker 1: followed the path to preaching, attending college and then seminary.
Speaker 1: Along the way, he fell in love with one of
Speaker 1: his classmate's sisters, a young woman named Eunice. And then
Speaker 1: one day he had a revelation. What if God, instead
Speaker 1: of being the angry, vindictive figure of his father's theology,
Speaker 1: was actually more like his father at home, a loving,
Speaker 1: benevolent parent. What if being good in a religious sense
Speaker 1: and being happy were not incompatible. As Debbie Applegate writes
Speaker 1: in her fabulous biography of Beecher, titled The Most Famous
Speaker 1: Man in America, this idea might not sound so revelatory
Speaker 1: to many of us today. She writes, mainstream Christianity is
Speaker 1: so deeply infused with the rhetoric of Christ's love that
Speaker 1: most Americans can imagine nothing else but trust me. For
Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties, Beecher's thinking was revolutionary, and Beecher was
Speaker 1: just the man to spread this new gospel. He was
Speaker 1: an enormously skilled orator who could bring his audience to
Speaker 1: tears or laughter with equal ease. His sermons were not
Speaker 1: based solely on the Bible. He drew from his own experiences,
Speaker 1: from the stories of those he met, and from the
Speaker 1: world around him. These sermons were emotional, exhilarating, empathetic, and provocative. Somehow,
Speaker 1: Beecher reflected, I have always had a certain sympathy for
Speaker 1: human nature, which has led me to see instinctively how
Speaker 1: to touch the right chord in people, how to reach
Speaker 1: the living principle in them. This sympathy and his ability
Speaker 1: to translate it into words were gifts that would serve
Speaker 1: him well all his life, both as a preacher and
Speaker 1: eventually in the courtroom. After seminary, beacher honed his speaking
Speaker 1: skills in rural Indiana for more than a decade, building
Speaker 1: a reputation as a new kind of preacher, one who
Speaker 1: could win over even the most hardened cynics, and soon enough,
Speaker 1: the big time came calling. In eighteen forty seven, Beecher
Speaker 1: was recruited to serve as the head pastor of Plymouth Church,
Speaker 1: a new congregation in Brooklyn Heights founded by some of
Speaker 1: New York City's most prominent businessmen. It was a Plymouth
Speaker 1: Church that Beecher truly made a name for himself. With
Speaker 1: the backing of the church board, he began to radically
Speaker 1: change the nature of worship. Most Christians of the era
Speaker 1: had grown up like Beecher had, in austere churches, but
Speaker 1: at Plymouth Church they experienced services overflowing with music and joy.
Speaker 1: Beacher literally redesigned the church, creating a space that looked
Speaker 1: more like a theater and filled it with flowers every Sunday.
Speaker 1: Drawn in by the warmth of this atmosphere, the congregation
Speaker 1: grew rapidly, eventually boasting nearly two thousand members, making it
Speaker 1: the largest church in America. Soon, Beecher took his talents
Speaker 1: on the road, joining the lecture circuit. Lectures were one
Speaker 1: of the most popular social activities of the day, and
Speaker 1: Beecher's speaking skills made him ideal for the job. By
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen fifties, he was lecturing up to four
Speaker 1: times a week at venues across the country. His fame
Speaker 1: grew even greater once he began writing a newspaper column
Speaker 1: where he wrote boldly about current events and religion. It
Speaker 1: didn't take long for people all over America to know
Speaker 1: his name Henry wasn't the only famous Beacher. Many of
Speaker 1: his siblings had become well known public figures, including his
Speaker 1: sister Harriet, who married a man named Calvin Stowe and
Speaker 1: made quite a name for herself with the eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: one publication of a little novel she wrote called Uncle
Speaker 1: Tom's Cabin. Uncle Tom's Cabin became the second best selling
Speaker 1: book of the nineteenth century, beaten only by the Bible,
Speaker 1: and had a profound impact on the anti slavery cause.
Speaker 1: Henry had also gotten involved in anti slavery work. Plymouth
Speaker 1: Church became a stop on the underground railroad, and congregants
Speaker 1: raised money to help enslaved people by their freedom. Many
Speaker 1: people did not like Beecher's politics, but his bold progressive
Speaker 1: stances raised his public profile even higher. There was something
Speaker 1: very modern about Beecher's fame. Many people didn't just see
Speaker 1: him as a public figure, they saw him as a friend. Today,
Speaker 1: we might call this dynamic a parasocial relationship. Donald Horton
Speaker 1: and Richard Woll, who coined the term parasocial relationship in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, wrote one of the striking characteristics of
Speaker 1: the new mass media radio, television and the movies is
Speaker 1: that they give the illusion of a face to face
Speaker 1: relationship with the performer. The most remote and illustrious men
Speaker 1: are met as if they were in the circle of
Speaker 1: one's peers. Mass media in the nineteenth century, including newspapers
Speaker 1: in photographs, served a similar purpose. People all over America,
Speaker 1: wanting a small piece of their idol, begged Beecher for
Speaker 1: a copy of his photographic portrait, and Beecher sent out hundreds.
Speaker 1: Beecher's particular brand of vulnerability and generosity made him especially relatable.
Speaker 1: Unlike preachers of the previous generation, he never mocked people
Speaker 1: for their doubts. Instead, he boldly proclaimed his own, as
Speaker 1: biographer Thomas Knox put it end quote painted in vivid colors,
Speaker 1: the unhappiness of his thoughts, the terror of his fear,
Speaker 1: and produced in their minds the impression that Beecher and
Speaker 1: they were one and the same. Debbie Applegate describes his
Speaker 1: fans as having a quote soul affinity for him, and
Speaker 1: their obsession made even the most mundane details of Beecher's
Speaker 1: life precious information. In an eighteen fifty nine column, Beecher
Speaker 1: wrote with annoyed amazement about the life of a public
Speaker 1: figure noting that quote. What you do or say, or
Speaker 1: do not do or say, what you wear, where you go,
Speaker 1: with whom you walk, when you get up, and when
Speaker 1: you lie down, all are diligently observed and reported. In
Speaker 1: other words, he was a nineteenth century influencer. Henry Ward
Speaker 1: Beecher felt like America's friend, and America was always eager
Speaker 1: to see what their friend would do next. Even those
Speaker 1: who knew Beecher personally engaged in a kind of hero worship.
Speaker 1: He cultivated an inner circle at Plymouth Church, filled with ambitious, intelligent,
Speaker 1: and successful young men and women who hung on his
Speaker 1: every word. The unofficial president of this fan club was
Speaker 1: Theodore Tilton. Tilton, an ambitious young man twenty years Beacher's junior,
Speaker 1: had been hired to help the preacher with his newspaper column.
Speaker 1: He spent his days immersed in Beecher's sermons, culling quotes
Speaker 1: that could be refashioned into articles in case Beecher midst
Speaker 1: a deadline, which he regularly did, and growing ever more
Speaker 1: in thrall of his charismatic hero mister Beecher, Tilton remembered,
Speaker 1: was my man of all men. The two men became
Speaker 1: extremely close referring to one another as father and son.
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty five, Beacher officiated Tilton's marriage to Elizabeth Richards,
Speaker 1: a bright, deeply pious woman. By this point, Tilton had
Speaker 1: even started dressing like Beecher, growing his hair out to
Speaker 1: his shoulders and adopting a beecher esque cloak and slouchy
Speaker 1: wide brim hat. But there's a downside to this kind
Speaker 1: of hero worship too. Even Henry Ward Beecher wasn't perfect,
Speaker 1: and the higher the pedestal, the greater the fall. By
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen sixties, the relationship between Theodore Tilton and
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher had started to fray. Some of the
Speaker 1: tension was political. After the Civil War, the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: which had led the charge to end slavery, split over
Speaker 1: how to approach reconstruction. Some Republicans, including Theodore Tilton, advocated
Speaker 1: for temporary federal control of Southern States, complete equality for
Speaker 1: black people, and punishment for former Confederates. Others, like Henry
Speaker 1: Ward Beecher and President Andrew Johnson, preached forgiveness and reconciliation
Speaker 1: with former Confederates. Beecher was an enthusiastic supporter of President Johnson,
Speaker 1: which struck friends as strange. Beecher had spent years preaching
Speaker 1: and slavery, while Johnson, a former slave owner, regularly vetoed
Speaker 1: civil rights legislation. Beecher's changing politics rubbed many colleagues the
Speaker 1: wrong way, but few more so than Tilton. In the
Speaker 1: winter of eighteen sixty six, a visitor to the Tilton
Speaker 1: house noticed that their plaster bust of Beecher had been
Speaker 1: turned to face the wall. When asked why, Elizabeth Tilton replied,
Speaker 1: quote Theodore says that our pastor has proved himself a
Speaker 1: traitor to the Republican party. There were also professional tensions
Speaker 1: between the two men. In January of eighteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: Beecher had been made editor in chief of The Independent,
Speaker 1: a popular newspaper run by a Plymouth church founder. Beecher
Speaker 1: agreed to take the position on the condition that Tilton
Speaker 1: became assistant editor, which may seem like a compliment to Tilton,
Speaker 1: but in reality meant that Tilton would do all of
Speaker 1: the work while Beecher got the credit. Tilton was gaining
Speaker 1: a reputation for himself in other arenas. He was a
Speaker 1: passionate lecturer, a courageous thinker, and an outspoken advocate for
Speaker 1: political reform, but he always seemed to play second fiddle
Speaker 1: to Beecher. As I grew older and mingled with the
Speaker 1: world and saw other men, Tilton later said, the fine
Speaker 1: gold of my idol gradually became dim and there was
Speaker 1: something else simmering too, something more personal. In November of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, Tilton had gone on a four month
Speaker 1: lecture tour, leaving his family behind. Despite the growing distance
Speaker 1: between himself and Beecher, Tilton had asked the preacher to
Speaker 1: check in on his family in his absence. Beecher took
Speaker 1: to visiting Elizabeth Tilton, regularly consulting with her on his
Speaker 1: novel in progress and bringing small gifts for the couple's
Speaker 1: young children. Elizabeth wrote Tilton glowing letters about Beecher's friendship.
Speaker 1: Tilton bristled. I think she regarded mister Beecher. Tilton would
Speaker 1: later say, almost as though Jesus Christ himself had walked in. Plymouth.
Speaker 1: Church was aware of the strained relationship between Beecher and Tilton,
Speaker 1: but it seemed like a private matter, at least for now.
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy two, this private drama exploded into the
Speaker 1: public eye thanks to the infamous suffragist, spiritualist, and first
Speaker 1: female candidate for president, Victoria Woodhull. Woodhull was a good
Speaker 1: friend of one of Beecher's sisters, the prominent suffragist Isabella
Speaker 1: Beecher Hooker, but most others in the women's suffrage movement
Speaker 1: kept their distance from Woodhull because of her radical positions,
Speaker 1: including her advocacy of free love. Here's Woodhull herself summarizing
Speaker 1: the political philosophy of free love. I am a free lover.
Speaker 1: I have an inalienable, constitutional, and natural right to love
Speaker 1: whom I may to love as long or as short
Speaker 1: a period as I can, to change that love every
Speaker 1: day if I please, And with that right, neither you
Speaker 1: nor any law you can frame have any right to interfere.
Speaker 1: This support for sexual freedom and non monogamy might not
Speaker 1: sound particularly wild now, but for the eighteen seventies, it
Speaker 1: was deeply shocking. When Woodhull announced her revolutionary presidential candidacy
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy, she hoped that her friendship with Isabella
Speaker 1: Beecher Hooker would draw Henry Ward Beecher into her camp,
Speaker 1: but he kept away. Even for a progressive like Beecher,
Speaker 1: who believed that joy and pleasure were gifts from God,
Speaker 1: free love was a step too far. Woodhull was furious
Speaker 1: at his lack of support, especially because she saw it
Speaker 1: as hypocritical. Hypocritical how in a September eighteen seventy two speech,
Speaker 1: she hinted at her meaning, alleging that Beecher was a
Speaker 1: free lover himself. The speech coincided with Beecher's twenty fifth
Speaker 1: anniversary celebration at Plymouth Church, which got considerably more attention
Speaker 1: than Woodhole's speech. Annoyed, she doubled down, saying, I will
Speaker 1: make it hotter on Earth for Henry Ward Beecher than
Speaker 1: hell is below. She began writing an article set to
Speaker 1: be published in her her own weekly magazine, an article
Speaker 1: that she claimed would quote burst like a bombshell into
Speaker 1: the ranks of the moralistic social camp, and boy did it. Ever.
Speaker 1: Within days of its October eighteen seventy two publication, one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand copies of the magazine were sold.
Speaker 1: New Yorkers could not believe what they were reading. In
Speaker 1: the article, titled the Beecher Tilton Scandal Case, Woodhull alleged
Speaker 1: that Henry Ward Beecher had had an extramarital affair with
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Tilton. Her sources, she claimed, were Beecher and the
Speaker 1: Tiltons themselves, as well as some of the most prominent
Speaker 1: political figures of the day, including the suffragist Elizabeth Katie Stanton.
Speaker 1: Her motivation in revealing the affair, Woodhull claimed was not
Speaker 1: personal spite, but rather political passion. By revealing that the
Speaker 1: most famous preacher in America was in fact a practitioner
Speaker 1: of free love, she hoped she could get Beecher to
Speaker 1: preach what he practiced. Sure, but most of the people
Speaker 1: who read the article could not have cared less about
Speaker 1: the politics. All they cared about were the dirty details.
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher had had an affair with the wife
Speaker 1: of his protege. And what's more, the article claimed that
Speaker 1: Theodore Tilton had learned of the affair from his wife
Speaker 1: five years earlier, and that the Tiltons and Beascher, aided
Speaker 1: by a mutual friend of theirs named Frank Moulden, had
Speaker 1: engaged in a cover up so that they could preserve
Speaker 1: their public reputations. It was nearly unbelievable, but more facts
Speaker 1: kept emerging in December, Tilton really, at least his own
Speaker 1: version of the story. Papers across the country posted breathless updates. Suspiciously,
Speaker 1: Beecher did not immediately deny the story. It wasn't until
Speaker 1: nearly seven months later that Beacher finally spoke out, writing
Speaker 1: in the Brooklyn Eagle, that the story was entirely false.
Speaker 1: The country went wild, and Plymouth Church decided that they
Speaker 1: needed to get control of the story, commissioning an in
Speaker 1: house investigative committee to look into the case. To Theodore Tilton,
Speaker 1: the investigative committee seemed to be more interested in silencing
Speaker 1: him than finding the truth, and his suspicions were confirmed
Speaker 1: when the church voted to excommunicate him in October of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three. Tilton called for an independent investigation of
Speaker 1: his excommunication, but this investigation, conducted by local churches, also
Speaker 1: seem inclined to protect their star preacher and only lightly
Speaker 1: censored Plymouth's practices. Tilton fumed then, to add insult to injury,
Speaker 1: Beecher's friends went on the attack. Another Brooklyn preacher, Leonard Bacon,
Speaker 1: gave a public speech where he called Tilton a knave
Speaker 1: and a dog. Tilton's fury boiled over, and he published
Speaker 1: several seemingly incriminating letters between himself, Beecher, and Elizabeth in
Speaker 1: the paper, in which Beecher begged for Theodore Tilton's forgiveness
Speaker 1: for an unspecified crime. Elizabeth Tilton, too had reached a
Speaker 1: breaking point. She was sick of having her private life
Speaker 1: splashed across the newspapers. She wanted to tell her story,
Speaker 1: not just be a quote nonentity, a placing to be
Speaker 1: used or let alone at will, As she told her brother,
Speaker 1: She had her chance that summer, when Plymouth Church convened
Speaker 1: yet another investigative committee. Testifying in a friend's home, Elizabeth
Speaker 1: vehemently denied the affair. She had only confessed to it,
Speaker 1: she said, because of her husband's constant harassment and abuse.
Speaker 1: Theodore had been so convinced of the affair that Elizabeth
Speaker 1: eventually felt it was just easier to give in and
Speaker 1: tell him what he wanted to hear. She described her
Speaker 1: husband as a vindictive pettyman who was so jealous of
Speaker 1: Beecher's success that quote the determination to ruin mister Beecher
Speaker 1: has been the one aim of his life. Less than
Speaker 1: a week after this testimony, she told Tilton that their
Speaker 1: marriage was over. Now a whole new side of the
Speaker 1: story was inferling. Elizabeth wasn't the only one questioning Tilton's credibility.
Speaker 1: Many wondered if Tilton's sudden willingness to discuss the alleged
Speaker 1: affair after nearly five years of helping cover up the story,
Speaker 1: stemmed from his jealousy of Beecher. Though Beecher had squandered
Speaker 1: some popular goodwill with his controversial positions after the war,
Speaker 1: his star had again been on the rise in the
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies. He was raking in money from appearances and
Speaker 1: publishing contracts. The greatest men in the country consulted him
Speaker 1: on personal and political matters. People stopped him in the
Speaker 1: street to express their admiration. Theodore Tilton, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: had been in a year's long downward spiral. His poetry
Speaker 1: was panned by critics, his lecture fees barely covered his expenses,
Speaker 1: and his reputation was in tatters. He would do anything
Speaker 1: for attention, Some said, could his accusations be just another ploy?
Speaker 1: All across America, people clamored to know the truth. They
Speaker 1: were tired of the story trickling out in newspapers of
Speaker 1: living off the scraps of a scandal. They were unsatisfied
Speaker 1: by the private investigations and behind the scenes verdicts. They
Speaker 1: will insist upind the Albany Evening Journal for hearing to
Speaker 1: take place in quote the full eye of the public,
Speaker 1: and they were about to get their wish. On August nineteenth,
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four, Theodore Tilton commissioned the firm of Morris
Speaker 1: and Pearsall to draft a civil complaint against Beecher, alleging
Speaker 1: that Beecher had quote alienated the affection of his wife,
Speaker 1: causing personal and professional damages to the tune of one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. On us August twentieth, Tilton swore to
Speaker 1: the truth of the complaint at the Brooklyn City Court.
Speaker 1: A trial date was set five months. Hence Theodore Tilton
Speaker 1: and Henry Ward Beecher would face off in court in
Speaker 1: the bloodiest battle of their combative careers. January eleventh, eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy five, donned cold and glittering, but the weather seemed
Speaker 1: to have no effect on the throngs of people gathered
Speaker 1: outside Brooklyn City Court. They rubbed their hands for warmth,
Speaker 1: puffed out steaming breaths and haggled over tickets to the
Speaker 1: season's hottest event, the Beecher Tilton trial. Only those with
Speaker 1: tickets would be admitted to the courtroom, and the price
Speaker 1: reflected the demand. Tickets went for as much as ten dollars,
Speaker 1: four times the average daily wage of an American worker
Speaker 1: by a quarter to eleven. Those lucky enough to secure
Speaker 1: a spot had filed into the courtroom alongside a bevy
Speaker 1: of reporters. The plaintiffts table was just as packed as
Speaker 1: the courtroom filled to bursting with Theodore Tilton, his friend
Speaker 1: Frank Moulton, and three of Tilton's five lawyers. Beecher's legal
Speaker 1: team was even bigger, consisting of seven men, but on
Speaker 1: this the first day, only one lawyer was seated at
Speaker 1: the defense table. As the eleven o'clock hour approached, the
Speaker 1: courtroom door swung open and the crowd turned to see
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher walk in, accompanied to their surprise by
Speaker 1: his wife. Like many wives past and present, Eunice Beecher
Speaker 1: had made the choice to stand by her man. She
Speaker 1: would attend nearly every day of the trial, keeping her
Speaker 1: face impassive as witnesses discussed intimate details of her marriage.
Speaker 1: At first, many observers found her presence disturbing. Surely, they said,
Speaker 1: her place was at home, sheltered in the bosom of
Speaker 1: her family and friends. But eventually they came to admire
Speaker 1: her dignity and strength, which only lent credibility to her
Speaker 1: husband's case, just as more cynical commentators would say, as
Speaker 1: the defense team had planned it. Before the trial could start,
Speaker 1: the lawyers had one concern. The courtroom was so crowded
Speaker 1: that they barely had enough room to make their arguments.
Speaker 1: They especially objected to the allocation of space to the press,
Speaker 1: who had been given more space than the lawyers themselves.
Speaker 1: In a symbolic illustration of the public's obsession with the case,
Speaker 1: the judge agreed to a rearrangement of the courtroom. Once
Speaker 1: this was done, the real business could begin. Samuel D. Morris,
Speaker 1: attorney for Theodore Tilton, approached the jury box and started
Speaker 1: his opening argument. Because so many facts of the scandal
Speaker 1: were already known to the public, neither side planned to
Speaker 1: introduce much in the way of new evidence. And I'll
Speaker 1: take a moment to note here that because so much
Speaker 1: of the trial testimony was repetitive exhausting and ambiguous. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go too much into the details of
Speaker 1: each witness. Instead, I'm going to focus on the competing
Speaker 1: stories of the plaintiff and the defense. As Debbie Applegate
Speaker 1: puts it, more than with most trials, the verdict here
Speaker 1: would depend largely on which side spun the evidence into
Speaker 1: the most believable story. Morris's opening was the first chance
Speaker 1: for Tilton's side to spin their story, and spin he did.
Speaker 1: What Morris hoped to establish in his argument were the
Speaker 1: stakes of the trial, stakes that went far beyond a
Speaker 1: simple love affair. This is no ordinary case that now
Speaker 1: engages the attention of this court and the attention of
Speaker 1: the entire community, he said. It is a trial the
Speaker 1: consequences of which reached to the very foundations of society,
Speaker 1: the home, the marriage, relation with all that is dear
Speaker 1: in that relation is upon trial in this case. Upon
Speaker 1: the result of your verdict, to a very large extent,
Speaker 1: also will depend the integrity of the Christian religion. Hyperbolic, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but Morris's description wasn't far off from the feelings of
Speaker 1: the public. America in the years after the Civil War
Speaker 1: was a lost country, ravaged by violence, Devastated by death
Speaker 1: and reeling in the face of radical social and political change,
Speaker 1: Americans were desperate for something to cling on to. Henry
Speaker 1: Ward Beecher, with his warm and welcoming ways, his gospel
Speaker 1: of love, his preaching of acceptance, was just such a
Speaker 1: port in the storm. This trial forced Americans to ask
Speaker 1: if this man, their hero, was just as corrupt as
Speaker 1: the rest of the country, And if he was, what
Speaker 1: did that mean if you fall? Wrote a man named
Speaker 1: Jo Smith in a letter to Beecher during the trial,
Speaker 1: no more humanity for me if you should prove guilty
Speaker 1: of the charges made against you, I should never place
Speaker 1: confidence in any mortal being. Tilton's lawyers knew that much
Speaker 1: of America, just like that letter writer, did not want
Speaker 1: Beecher to be guilty. By laying out the stakes in
Speaker 1: the way he did, Morris hoped he could convince the
Speaker 1: jurors that finding against Beecher would only strengthen their political
Speaker 1: and religious institutions. He was appealing to those who saw
Speaker 1: Beecher's Gospel of Love as a slippery slope towards heathenism
Speaker 1: and hedonism. To make his case, Morris used Beecher's own
Speaker 1: words against him beginning with a particularly damning letter that
Speaker 1: Beecher had sent to Tilton in January of eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 1: This letter had come to be known in the press
Speaker 1: as the Letter of Contrition. In it, Beecher begged for
Speaker 1: Tilton's forgiveness for an unspecified transgression, writing I humble myself
Speaker 1: before him as I do before my God. Morris hammered
Speaker 1: in on Beecher's language with a level of sass that
Speaker 1: I absolutely love, saying, a man comes to you and
Speaker 1: accuses you falsely of an infamous crime, and the next
Speaker 1: communication you have with him, you say, I humble myself
Speaker 1: before you as I do before my God. Gentlemen, it
Speaker 1: is a nonsense to argue that point, and I shall
Speaker 1: not pursue it further. This certainly didn't bode well for Beecher,
Speaker 1: but as Morris himself acknowledged, the plaintiff's case was almost
Speaker 1: entirely based on vague letters like this. That is to say,
Speaker 1: it was circumstantial. There was a natural reason for this,
Speaker 1: of course, adultery, as Morris put it, is a crime
Speaker 1: of darkness and of secrecy. It was a crime committed
Speaker 1: out of sight. So unless one got very lucky or unlucky,
Speaker 1: depending on your point of view, and happened to catch
Speaker 1: their cheating spouse in the act, all while accompanied by say,
Speaker 1: fifteen unimpeachable nuns who could testify to what they'd seen.
Speaker 1: Any trial would have to depend on more sketchy evidence.
Speaker 1: A judgment would have to rely on individuals subjective and
Speaker 1: often highly differing interpretation of words and actions. And indeed,
Speaker 1: that's exactly how the Beecher trial played out. Though the
Speaker 1: defense and plaintiff teams would each question dozens of witnesses
Speaker 1: one hundred and eleven in total over the course of
Speaker 1: the next six months, the verdict would ultimately come down
Speaker 1: to who the jurors believed more. Beecher's lawyers hoped that
Speaker 1: the question of credibility would be decided in his favor,
Speaker 1: a theme that lawyer Benjamin Tracy hit on in his
Speaker 1: defense opening. Tracy began by laying out just why the
Speaker 1: jurors should trust Beacher's account, saying that he would have
Speaker 1: no trouble getting quote, thousands upon thousands of witnesses to
Speaker 1: testify to Beacher's character. While he rejected Morris's idea that
Speaker 1: the fate of American Christianity rested on the verdict. Tracy
Speaker 1: wasn't shy about comparing his client to Christ himself, describing
Speaker 1: Beecher's suffering at Tilton's hands as a being like a
Speaker 1: crown of thorns. Once he was finished building up Beecher,
Speaker 1: Tracy set about destroying Tilton. An all dominating selfish egotism
Speaker 1: is the basis of Tilton's character, Tracy began, and because
Speaker 1: of this egotism, he continued, Tilton became both enormously ambitious
Speaker 1: and enormously jealous. It was just as Elizabeth Tilton had
Speaker 1: told Plymouth Church Theodore Tilton had been jealous and resentful
Speaker 1: of his mentor. In Tracy's words, Tilton saw Beecher as quote,
Speaker 1: the one man who had prevented him from reaching the
Speaker 1: topmost summit of fame. If Tilton could not be famous,
Speaker 1: Tracy said, quote, he could at least be infamous, and
Speaker 1: he preferred infamy to oblivion. Desperate for attention, running out
Speaker 1: of money and rejected by the social and intellectual elite,
Speaker 1: Tilton made his play capitalizing on his history with Beecher.
Speaker 1: Mister Beecher had long been his friend and the intimate
Speaker 1: friend of his wife, Tracy explained, that friendship, Tilton could
Speaker 1: pervert and make himself the author and at the same
Speaker 1: time the central figure of the most famous scandal of
Speaker 1: modern times. If Tilton could not supplant Beecher in the
Speaker 1: affection of the people, Tracy continued, he could scandalize him.
Speaker 1: If Tilton had made it impossible for the honorable pen
Speaker 1: to write his own biography, then was it worth any
Speaker 1: cost to have a line devoted to him in the
Speaker 1: biography of Henry Ward Beecher. This kind of argument that
Speaker 1: those who bring suit or charges against celebrities are simply
Speaker 1: doing it for attention has uncomfortable modern parallels. We've seen
Speaker 1: the same claim made against countless people who told their
Speaker 1: stories of sexual assault during the Me Too movement, and
Speaker 1: for the most part, it's an easy claim to Rebut
Speaker 1: few people would welcome the painful and invasive scrutiny that
Speaker 1: comes with a high profile case. But Theodore Tilton may
Speaker 1: just have been one of those people. As Tracy brutally
Speaker 1: put it, Tilton was the kind of man who, quote,
Speaker 1: if he could realize the sad truth that he was
Speaker 1: morally dead, would still rejoice in this post mortem investigation
Speaker 1: of his character. Tilton had always welcomed controversy thriving on
Speaker 1: backlash and scandal. To many observers, it seemed entirely plausible
Speaker 1: that Tilton had invented, or at least exaggerated, the entire thing,
Speaker 1: and Tracy acknowledged that Beacher may have unwittingly helped Tilton
Speaker 1: do just that due to his own naivete. The defense's
Speaker 1: theory of the case ran like this. Beacher, a close
Speaker 1: friend of both the Tilton's, had become a confidant and
Speaker 1: spiritual guide to Elizabeth as she struggled in her marriage.
Speaker 1: In the process, unbeknownst to Beecher, Elizabeth had developed feelings
Speaker 1: for him. Eventually, concerned for her mental and physical well being,
Speaker 1: Beecher had counseled Elizabeth to leave Theodore. It was for
Speaker 1: these sins, for not realizing what Elizabeth felt for him,
Speaker 1: for not consulting his old protege Theodore to get his
Speaker 1: side of the story, for counseling Elizabeth to lie leave.
Speaker 1: It was for these sins, and not the sin of
Speaker 1: adultery that Beecher had apologized for in his letter of contrition.
Speaker 1: He had aired as a pastor, but not as a man.
Speaker 1: As Richard Whiteman Fox notes in his book Trials of
Speaker 1: Intimacy quote the supreme irony of the trial is that,
Speaker 1: while it was convened to determine whether Beecher had alienated
Speaker 1: the affections of Missus Tilton from her husband, Beecher, in
Speaker 1: order to exculpate himself conceded he had unintentionally done just that.
Speaker 1: He admitted his moral fault to establish his legal innocence.
Speaker 1: It was an argument that was not very flattering to Beecher.
Speaker 1: It made him look clumsy and obtuse, but it fit
Speaker 1: the facts, and it fit with what the public knew
Speaker 1: of Beecher. He was enthusiastic, emotional, impulsive. Such a man
Speaker 1: could easily get carried away by the vulnerability of a
Speaker 1: woman and trapped by the machinations of her husband. There's
Speaker 1: a beautifully illustrative story about Beecher from some years before
Speaker 1: the trial that might help put the public's attitude into context.
Speaker 1: On one chilly January night back in eighteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: Beecher had attempted to cross the ice of the frozen
Speaker 1: East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The ice broke, stranding
Speaker 1: him on a floe, from which he was eventually rescued
Speaker 1: by a boat. As The New York Times observed, quote
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher never did a more thoroughly characteristic thing
Speaker 1: in his life. He acted then precisely as he does,
Speaker 1: always impulsively, courageously, rashly and successfully. He is always crossing
Speaker 1: the ice somewhere or other. And though he has had
Speaker 1: some narrow escapes, he has never yet fallen in. Now
Speaker 1: Beecher had finally fallen in. But would he be punished
Speaker 1: for it? That would be for the jury to decide,
Speaker 1: And with the conclusion of arguments on June twenty third,
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five, more than one hundred and sixty days
Speaker 1: after the trial began, they would have their chance to
Speaker 1: do just that. For seven days, nothing was heard from
Speaker 1: the jury. Then on July first, they sent a note
Speaker 1: to the judge, May it please the court, we think
Speaker 1: there is no possibility of our agreeing on a verdict,
Speaker 1: and we respectfully asked to be discharged. Judge Nielsen, who
Speaker 1: The New York Times had once described as quote a
Speaker 1: man not to be trifled with, was not pleased. He
Speaker 1: summoned the jury into the courtroom and lectured them on
Speaker 1: their responsibilities. After a six month trial. The judge said
Speaker 1: it would be quote humiliating for no verdict to be rendered,
Speaker 1: especially in a case that had so much public attention.
Speaker 1: It would be difficult to find any case, Judge Nielsen said,
Speaker 1: where an agreement by a jury would be so desirable,
Speaker 1: so imperative. Jury Foreman Chester Carpenter responded that it wasn't
Speaker 1: that they didn't want to find a verdict, but that
Speaker 1: they couldn't. It is a question of fact, a question
Speaker 1: of the veracity of witnesses, on which we do not agree,
Speaker 1: your honor, he explained, And I would say that I
Speaker 1: think there is not a possibility of an agreement in
Speaker 1: this jury. The judge asked them to try once more,
Speaker 1: and they did, but returned the next day still stumped. Finally,
Speaker 1: Judge Nielsen agreed to discharge the jury and the result
Speaker 1: was announced. In the case of Tilton v. Beecher, the
Speaker 1: jury was hung. It wasn't the verdict anyone particularly wanted,
Speaker 1: but it was one that was somewhat expected. After all,
Speaker 1: the jury foreman had put it well, it was difficult
Speaker 1: to judge just who was telling the truth. On the
Speaker 1: one hand, Theodore Tilton's explanation of the facts seemed to
Speaker 1: make more sense. But on the other Henry Ward Beecher
Speaker 1: was well Henry Ward Beecher America's best friend. As his
Speaker 1: defense lawyer William Everts had put it during the trial,
Speaker 1: I prefer to find in character the refutation of false evidence,
Speaker 1: and the jury seemed to agree, though they had failed
Speaker 1: to reach a verdict. A poll of the jurors found
Speaker 1: that they leaned nine to three in Beecher's favor. In
Speaker 1: his closing argument, Tilton's lawyer, William Beach had implored jurors
Speaker 1: to quote judge Beecher as we would judge ourselves or
Speaker 1: our fellow men generally, But in the end they simply
Speaker 1: could not. For three decades, Beecher had been internationally celebrated
Speaker 1: for his integrity, his courage, and his compassion. No courtroom
Speaker 1: is a vacuum. What the jurors and the public had
Speaker 1: learned in the course of the trial had been damaging
Speaker 1: to his reputation, but in the end it didn't seem
Speaker 1: to be enough to find Beecher guilty. However, there are
Speaker 1: many things that were never brought up in the courtroom,
Speaker 1: including a few facts that, had they been known, might
Speaker 1: have made the world see Henry Ward Beecher in a
Speaker 1: very different light. Henry Ward Beacher had always been a
Speaker 1: ladies man. If we want to be armchair analysts, we
Speaker 1: could trace this trait back to his childhood, when, in
Speaker 1: Debbie Applegate's words, the potent triangle of an idealized absent mother,
Speaker 1: a distant, critical stepmother, and a bevy of smart, strong,
Speaker 1: rongwilled sisters and aunts who doted on the boy but
Speaker 1: had little time to spoil him bred in him a
Speaker 1: lifelong craving for the affection of attractive, intelligent women. He
Speaker 1: liked women, and as he grew older and shed his
Speaker 1: childhood awkwardness, he was delighted to find that they liked
Speaker 1: him too. He might not have been the most handsome
Speaker 1: man in the room. Mark Twain described him as quote
Speaker 1: as homely as a singed cat, but he had it.
Speaker 1: As Twain also said, mister Beecher is a remarkably handsome
Speaker 1: man when he is in the full tide of sermonizing
Speaker 1: and his face is lit up with animation. He could
Speaker 1: turn on this energy in one on one settings, too,
Speaker 1: to great effect. When he fell for his college roommate's sister,
Speaker 1: Eunice Bullard in the early eighteen thirties. It hadn't taken
Speaker 1: him long to convince Eunice and her family to accept
Speaker 1: his proposal, even though it meant that she would have
Speaker 1: to endure a seven year engagement while he finished college
Speaker 1: and seminary. The engagement seemed for a moment to Saint
Speaker 1: Beecher's desire for female affection. If you wish true, unalloyed,
Speaker 1: genuine delight, fall in love with some amiable girl, he
Speaker 1: wrote a friend. But this feeling didn't last long. When
Speaker 1: the couple eventually married, the newlywed glow wore off quickly.
Speaker 1: Beecher was an inattentive husband, constantly forgetting his new wife
Speaker 1: at train stations and events, and Eunice was not temperamentally
Speaker 1: suited to the life of a traveling preacher's wife. She
Speaker 1: was jealous and critical, prone to martyrdom and hypochondria. By
Speaker 1: the time the couple made it to New York, a
Speaker 1: decade into their marriage, they were both deeply unhappy. Friends
Speaker 1: and family knew about the couple's troubles, which they mostly
Speaker 1: blamed on Unice. Unfortunately, as Debbie Applegate points out to outsiders,
Speaker 1: hen pecking is more obvious than stealthy emotional neglect, but
Speaker 1: few knew to what lengths Henry Ward Beecher would go
Speaker 1: to once again find the genuine delight of love. In
Speaker 1: the late eighteen fifties, Beecher had grown close to two
Speaker 1: of his congregants, Chloe and Moses Beach. Yes Beach, not Beecher.
Speaker 1: The names are annoyingly similar. Moses was an unassuming, clever
Speaker 1: man who edited the New York Sun. Beecher liked Moses
Speaker 1: a great deal, but he seemed even more drawn to
Speaker 1: Moses's wife, Chloe, a self possessed, graceful woman. Soon the
Speaker 1: two were spending quite a bit of time together alone.
Speaker 1: Chloe and Beecher's relationship became so intense that Moses moved
Speaker 1: his family out of Brooklyn several times throughout the eighteen
Speaker 1: sixties in order, he wrote, to cut off the associations
Speaker 1: which were constantly dragging me into a mire of unhappy
Speaker 1: thought and depriving me of an affection which it had
Speaker 1: been the one aim of my life to cherish and nourish.
Speaker 1: Every time they left, though Chloe would become so miserable
Speaker 1: that Moses would eventually relent. They would return to the
Speaker 1: city and to Beecher. In January of eighteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: Chloe gave birth to a daughter named Violet. There is compelling,
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence that Violet was Beecher's daughter. At the time
Speaker 1: of Violet's conception, Moses was stricken with typhoid fever. The
Speaker 1: stomach problems and rashes associated with that disease make it
Speaker 1: unlikely that the Beaches would have been intimate during this time,
Speaker 1: and that's on top of the marital problems caused by
Speaker 1: cl Loe's relationship with Beecher. When Moses learned of Chloe's pregnancy,
Speaker 1: he literally fled the country and then spent most of
Speaker 1: the first year of his daughter's life away from his family. Beacher,
Speaker 1: by contrast, doted on Violet. He spoiled her with gifts,
Speaker 1: played with her constantly, and wrote to her often. Debbie
Speaker 1: Applegate managed to uncover pictures of Violet and Beacher together,
Speaker 1: and the resemblance, at least in my opinion, is pretty striking.
Speaker 1: And Chloe was not Beecher's only alleged mistress. His relationships
Speaker 1: with a number of female congregants had been so concerning.
Speaker 1: Plymouth Church founder Henry Bowen would later recall that a
Speaker 1: group of the church's leading men had once sent a
Speaker 1: representative to the preacher's house to confront him about his behavior.
Speaker 1: According to Bowen, Beecher reacted to these accusations quote like
Speaker 1: a guilty man, was grit lately embarrassed, and promise that
Speaker 1: there should be no further occasion for such scandal. Beecher's
Speaker 1: flirtatious behavior was not aknown to the public at the
Speaker 1: time of the trial. Newspapers had dug up stories of
Speaker 1: his close relationships with female students and congregants from throughout
Speaker 1: his clerical career, but explicit discussions of his pattern of
Speaker 1: adultery of the type that we have access to today
Speaker 1: weren't around in eighteen seventy five, so the public could
Speaker 1: only judge on what they knew, all of which inclined
Speaker 1: them to give Henry Ward Beecher the benefit of the
Speaker 1: doubt when it came to Theodore Tilton's allegations. Yes, not
Speaker 1: everyone believed Beecher, but it's hard to ignore the way
Speaker 1: his celebrities skewed both public opinion and the trial itself.
Speaker 1: We've seen the same thing occur in modern celebrity trials,
Speaker 1: from oj Simpson to Johnny Depp. When we feel like
Speaker 1: we know a celebrity, it becomes that much harder to
Speaker 1: believe that they could be guilty of a crime that
Speaker 1: feels out of line with their perceived character. But every
Speaker 1: public figure has a private life, and no matter how
Speaker 1: strong our parasocial relationship with the celebrity is, we don't
Speaker 1: actually know them. Celebrities in the courtroom make for an
Speaker 1: uneasy mix. It's just as true now as it was
Speaker 1: in the eighteen seventies. Though we often like to think
Speaker 1: of a trial as a form of objective investigation into
Speaker 1: a claim, how objective can that investigation be when the
Speaker 1: court of law is, despite best intentions, inevitably influenced by
Speaker 1: the court of public opinion. The Beecher Tilton case was
Speaker 1: a scandal in the truest sense, too messy and complex
Speaker 1: to be neatly captured or resolved by a court. When
Speaker 1: the historian Richard Whiteman Fox began investigating the trial for
Speaker 1: his book Trials of Intimacy, he initially wanted to determine
Speaker 1: the truth of the case which side had it right,
Speaker 1: But as he discovered quote the whole idea of two
Speaker 1: sides was flawed. It was not a choice between guilt
Speaker 1: and innocence, but an interpretation of multiple competing stories, each
Speaker 1: of them much too complex to be encompassed by the
Speaker 1: side metaphor. Our adversarial trial system, which requires two such
Speaker 1: distinct sides in every case, is not always the best
Speaker 1: fit for the irrational, chaotic reality of human life. Few
Speaker 1: trials illustrate this failing better than the Beacher Tilton case.
Speaker 1: That's the story of Theodore Tilton v. Henry Ward Beecher.
Speaker 1: Stick around after the break to learn how the main
Speaker 1: players from the trial fared in its aftermath, and to
Speaker 1: hear one final revelation on the affair. After the trial,
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher was welcomed back by Plymouth Church with
Speaker 1: open arms and a generous salary raise to cover his
Speaker 1: legal costs. For his first sermon after his return, he
Speaker 1: preached about compassion and forgiveness. Don't believe that all men
Speaker 1: are bad because you have seen some of their weaknesses
Speaker 1: or even their sins, he admonished the crowd. Despite his
Speaker 1: projection of confidence, the trial had shaken him. Friends recalled
Speaker 1: that he was colder and more distant after eighteen seventy five.
Speaker 1: He was also broke in early eighteen seventy seven, he
Speaker 1: went on a lecture tour to try to make money.
Speaker 1: Fortunately for Beecher, the trial had only increased people's desire
Speaker 1: to see him speak. Over the course of forty lectures
Speaker 1: in seven weeks, he spoke to nearly seventy thousand people.
Speaker 1: Using the proceeds of this tour, he built a mansion
Speaker 1: in Upstate New York, telling his brother I have pride
Speaker 1: in building the house and earning every penny that pays
Speaker 1: for it, and that after the world, the flesh and
Speaker 1: the devil conspired to put me down guests who supervised
Speaker 1: the construction from her own house next door his alleged mistress,
Speaker 1: Chloe Beach. Over the next decade, Henry Ward Beecher continued
Speaker 1: to be outspoken on both political and religious issues. Though
Speaker 1: the scandal had burned him, he had not lost his
Speaker 1: taste for attention nor his ideological fearlessness. He continued to publish,
Speaker 1: preach and lecture across America until he suffered a sudden
Speaker 1: stroke on March second, eighteen eighty seven, dying six days
Speaker 1: later at age seventy three. Fifty thousand people gathered in
Speaker 1: the streets to mourn Henry Ward Beecher, and city Hall
Speaker 1: was draped in black bunting. Theodore Tilton's reputation never recovered.
Speaker 1: He also tried to capitalize off the scandal with a
Speaker 1: lecture tour, but his audience was the world had lost
Speaker 1: interest in him when the novelty of the scandal wore off.
Speaker 1: He eventually moved to Paris, where he wrote poetry and
Speaker 1: lived a quiet life before dying in May nineteen oh seven.
Speaker 1: Unlike her husband and Beecher, Elizabeth Tilton had not gotten
Speaker 1: to tell her side of the story at trial. The
Speaker 1: lawyers all agreed that she was too unreliable of a witness.
Speaker 1: She had tried to speak out, giving the judge a
Speaker 1: prepared statement that she asked him to read aloud. The
Speaker 1: judge had declined, but the statement, of course, made its
Speaker 1: way to the papers. In it, Elizabeth once again denied
Speaker 1: the affair and implied that she had been forced by
Speaker 1: her husband to make a false confession. After the trial,
Speaker 1: she lived with her mother and children in Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: shunned public attention up until eighteen seventy eight. That is,
Speaker 1: on April state sixteenth, the Morning Papers carried a shocking
Speaker 1: letter written by Elizabeth Tilton to her lawyer. In the letters,
Speaker 1: she swore that the charge brought by my husband of
Speaker 1: adultery between myself and the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher was true.
Speaker 1: Two months later, she told a Plymouth church committee, I
Speaker 1: now repeat and affirm that the acknowledgment of adultery was
Speaker 1: the truth and nothing but the truth, and that having
Speaker 1: previously published a false statement denying the charges, I desired
Speaker 1: to make the truth as worldwide as the lie had been.
Speaker 1: But she did not have the same platform as Beecher
Speaker 1: or her husband, and most people dismissed her statements. Though
Speaker 1: she was a central player in the scandal, Elizabeth Tilton
Speaker 1: was never taken seriously. She had become just as she
Speaker 1: feared she would, only a plaything, the rope and a
Speaker 1: vicious tug of war between two powers, poorful, egotistical men.
Speaker 1: After eighteen seventy eight, she never spoke out publicly again, and,
Speaker 1: according to one obituary, banned all newspapers from her home.
Speaker 1: She died on April thirteenth, eighteen ninety seven, five weeks
Speaker 1: after Unice Beacher. Both women are buried in Greenwood Cemetery
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. Elizabeth Tilton's headstone simply says, grandmother Eunice Beacher
Speaker 1: shares a headstone with her husband. Her section of the
Speaker 1: stone bears only her birth and death dates. Henry got
Speaker 1: an epitaph quote he thinketh no evil, from his favorite
Speaker 1: Bible chapter, First Corinthians, chapter thirteen. But after meddling through
Speaker 1: the murky waters of the Tilton Beacher scandal, the next
Speaker 1: verse might be a more appropriate conclusion to this episode.
Speaker 1: Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to History on Trial. The main sources for
Speaker 1: this episode were the trial transcript, Debbie Applegate's book The
Speaker 1: Most Famous Man in America, Biography of Henry Ward Beecher,
Speaker 1: and Richard Whitman Fox's book Trials of Intimacy, Love and
Speaker 1: Loss in the Beecher's Hilton Scandal. For a full bibliography,
Speaker 1: as well as a transcript of this episode with citations,
Speaker 1: please visit our website History on Trial podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: History on Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward.
Speaker 1: The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with
Speaker 1: supervising producer Trevor Young and executive producers Dana Schwartz. Alexander Williams,
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show
Speaker 1: at History on Trial podcast dot com and follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at History on Trial and on Twitter at Underscore.
Speaker 1: History on Trial and more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting
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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.