Tilton, John L.

TILTON

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 7/2/2021 at 21:06:45

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.813

JOHN L. TILTON
Throughout his active business life John L. Tilton has been prominently identified with educational work and has been one of the professors at Simpson College for the past twenty years. He is a native of New Hampshire, born at Nashua, on the 11th of January 1863, and was graduated from the high school of that city in 1881, receiving one of the Noyes prize medals. After his graduation from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, in 1885, he served one year as principal of the schools of Niantic, Connecticut, from which place he returned to Wesleyan University as assistant in natural history and a post-graduate student, remaining there two years. In 1887 he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa and the following year was given the master's degree.
Professor Tilton then accepted an election to the chair of natural sciences at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, which position he still retains though two other professors now share in the work of the department. In August, 1892, he passed the competitive examinations for a position as teacher of sciences in the high schools of Chicago, receiving an election, but finally gave up the opportunity for advancement because of the unwillingness of the trustees to let him go so near the beginning of the college year. This prevented his enter­ing upon graduate work in geology at the University of Chicago at that time, that being a part of his plan. A year's leave of absence (1894-95) he spent in geology at Harvard University, from which institution he received a mas­ter's degree in 1895. A second year's absence (1902-03) he spent as a fellow in geology at the University of Chicago, at which institution he has now prac­tically completed his work for a doctor's degree.
While serving as an assistant in natural history he spent parts of three summers at biological laboratories at the sea shore. After election to Simpson College he spent part of a summer taking the course in quantitative analysis at Harvard (since at first he had to teach chemistry along with other subjects) and a part of the summer in further preparation in electricity at Wes­leyan. In 1890 he took the summer course in electrical engineering at Har­vard. Several summers between 1890 and 1897 he spent in work on the Iowa geological survey. The summer of 1897 he spent in traveling in southwestern Colorado, and the summer of 1901 in lecturing in western Iowa. The summers of 1903, 1904 and 1905 were wholly given to geological field work.
Professor Tilton holds membership in Phi Beta Kappa; the American Society of Naturalists; the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Iowa Academy of Sciences, of which he was the president in 1908. He has published the following papers: "The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Annual Reports of the Curators of the Museum of Wesleyan University, Mid­dletown, Connecticut;" "Geological Section Along Middle River in Central Iowa;" "On the Southwestern Part of the Boston Basin;" "The Area of Slate Near Nashua, New Hampshire;" "The Geology of Warren County, Iowa;" part of "The Geology of Madison County, Iowa;" "Engineering Problems in a Course in Physics;" "The Switchboard and Arrangement of Storage Battery at Simpson College;" "A Problem in Municipal Waterworks for a Small City;" and a few shorter papers. He is now engaged in the preparation of a detailed report on "The Pleistocene Deposits of Warren County, Iowa." Within the last few years he has delivered as many as thirty-six public lec­tures and addresses.
On the 4th of September, 1890, Professor Tilton was united in marriage to Miss Ida M. Hoyt, of Nashua, New Hampshire, and they have one child, Bessie Swinburne Tilton, born June 15, 1891. On his conversion at the age of thirteen years he joined the Methodist Church and has since taken an active interest in church work. Public spirited and progressive, he is now serving as a member of the Indianola library and park boards, and he never withholds his support from any enterprise which he believes will promote the public welfare or advance the interests of his city and county.