Portrait from the Kennebec Daily Journal, January 3, 1911.
Obscure Maine state representative Tileston E. Woodside is yet another example of a small-town lawyer who went on to serve a term in his state's legislature, and the 1911 Maine state house proved to be peopled with oddly named representatives, with Active Irving Snow, Corydon Powers, Beloni S. DuFour, Houghton H. Putnam, and Zebulon Gould Manter serving alongside Woodside. Born on August 6, 1876, in Lewiston, Maine, Tileston Edwin Woodside was the son of Edwin and Sarah Adella (Wadlin) Woodside.
A student in the Lewiston schools, Woodside went on to study at the Bates College, graduating in the class of 1898. After being admitted to the Maine bar in 1903 he established his law practice in Lewiston, later removing to the town of Webster. Elected as one of Androscoggin County's representatives to the Maine legislature in 1910, Woodside would serve during the 1911-13 session on the committee on Bills In the Third Reading.
After leaving the legislature Woodside continued practicing law, being a member of the firm of Newell and Woodside in Lisbon, Maine. Woodside also married late in life, taking as his bride one Catherine Galvin (1880-1960) on April 20, 1936. Prior to Catherine Woodside's death in 1960, Tileston had served as a notary public in Sabbatus, Maine, and died in Lewiston on November 9, 1967, a few months after his 91st birthday. He was later interred alongside his wife and parents at the Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Sabbatus.
From the Past and Present of the City of Zanesville and Muskingum County, Ohio, 1905.
Two years following the above article on Tileston Woodside, another "Tileston" with fleeting political involvement was discovered (July 1, 2019). Lifelong Zanesville, Ohio native Tileston Fracker Spangler was long a business power player in Muskingum County, serving as president of the Spangler Realty Company, director of the City and County Workhouse, and a founding organizer of the Guardian Trust and Safe Deposit Company of Zanesville, of which he served as vice-president. A keen genealogist and leading historian in his city during his senior years, Spangler had a brief flirtation with politics in 1920, when he served as an alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Born on March 28, 1849, in Zanesville, Tileston Fracker Spangler was the son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Tarrance) Spangler.
A graduate of the Zanesville High School in the class of 1867, Spangler embarked upon a brief teaching career and in 1870 turned his attention to law studies, reading law under local attorney Albert W. Train. After being admitted to the bar in 1873, Spangler saw more lucrative opportunities in real estate work, and within a few short years had become affiliated with the Homestead Building and Savings Association of Zanesville. Spangler would later organize the Spangler Realty Company, and as its president had a role in the development of the Brighton, Maplewood, Norwood, and Belleview Terrace neighborhoods into improved residential areas.
A founding organizer of the People's Savings Bank of Zanesville, Spangler served that organization as its first president and in May 1900 led in the establishment of the Guardian Trust and Safe Deposit Company, of which he was the first vice president and manager. In 1892 Spangler entered into the role of director of the Zanesville City and County Workhouse, serving in that capacity until 1898. Further business successes came Spangler's way with his being the director and secretary of the Kearns-Gorsuch Bottle Company and for an indeterminate period of time held the directorship of the Muskingum Coffin Company.
Tileston Spangler's first foray into Ohio government came in 1883 when he was selected by then-Governor George Hoadley as a member of his military staff and was given the rank of Colonel. He served that administration until 1885 and was reappointed under Governor James Campbell, serving from 1889-1891. In addition to those roles, Spangler was named to Zanesville's first park commission, and as its head proved influential in:
"Converting forty acres of comparatively unimproved grounds into parks and making special changes at Putnam Hill and McIntyre and Pioneer Parks. His transformation of a bare and unsightly river bank at the end of Woodlawn Avenue into a rare beauty spot with flowers and grassy levels and attractive arbors marked a rare achievement in park-making and gave infinite charm to a plot of land in the heart of Zanesville."
Tileston Spangler in old age.
In 1920 Tileston Spangler served as part of the Ohio delegation to the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco as an alternate delegate. A keen student of history as well as a genealogist, he would author a history of his family (which was published after his death) and for a number of years held memberships in both the Sons of the American Revolution and the Sons of the War of 1812. Widowed in 1907, Spangler later remarried to Mary Buckingham Greene, who would survive him upon his death, which occurred on January 8, 1936, at age 86. Spangler was later interred in the Spangler family plot at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Zanesville.
