Corwin
D. Tilbury
(1853-1947)
Corwin D. Tilbury was born in 1853
near Dixon, Van Wert County,
OH, the son of Elihu and Amy (Minerd)
Tilbury. He is the only known member of our family to serve on Pittsburgh
City Council, the governing body of the great industrial city. His wife is the
first known educator in our clan to be certified to teach by the Chicago Board
of Education.
By 1870, Corwin was residing on the farm of his uncle and aunt, James and Martha Jane (Sheehan) Minerd, on the Indiana-Ohio state line just north of Dixon, near Monroeville, IN.
He was close with the Minerds over the years, and often wrote letters to Goldie Minerd, the daughter of his cousin John 'Reuben' Minerd. In one letter to Goldie in November 1937, when he was in his mid-80s, he wrote: "I love the old farm as well as the people on it!"
Corwin may have moved for a brief time to Chicago, IL. On New Year's Eve 1883, he married Eva M. Marsh (1853-1934), a teacher in the Chicago schools. They had no children.
Eva received a teaching certification on Feb. 27, 1879 from the Board of Education of the City of Chicago. Nothing else of this aspect of her career is known. Oral tradition in the family said that Eva may have lost some possessions in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
In the 1880s or 1890s, Corwin and Eva apparently lived in Cincinnati, OH, as did his brother Mentzer. Corwin joined the Masonic Order of Cincinnati, and remained a member until his death many years later.
The portrait of Corwin at the top of this biography was taken in 1899 in Elmira, NY, at the studio of W.C. Rowley, 110 & 112 West Water Street. He may have gone there on vacation, but otherwise the circumstances of him being there are not known.
By 1905, and possibly earlier, Corwin and Eva had moved to Pittsburgh. The following year, in 1906, he was elected to the Select Council of Pittsburgh City Council, which along with the Mayor was (and is) the governing body of the city.
Seen here is Pittsburgh's old City Hall, where the
Council Chambers were located. Corwin served as a Select Councilman for three years, completing his
service in 1908.
Corwin is mentioned for this service in Pittsburgh Borough and City
Officials, 1794-1941, compiled by Lucille A. Tomko, and on file at the
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. He also is mentioned in the Official
Municipal Program of the Sesqui-Centennial of the City of Pittsburgh
(1758-1908), of which an original copy today is preserved in the
Minerd-Miner-Minor Archives.
The Mayor of Pittsburgh during that era was George W. Guthrie,
seen at right.
Yet the Pittsburgh to which Corwin had begun a political career was hopelessly corrupt. In his classic book Shame of the Cities, published in 1904, McClure's Magazine journalist Lincoln Steffens writes:
Pittsburg is an example of both police and financial corruption... The city has been described physically as "Hell with the lid off"; politically it is hell with the lid on ... There are earnest men in the town who declare it must blow up of itself soon.
According to Stefan Lorant's landmark book, Pittsburgh: The Story of an American City, some of the highlights of the 1906-1908 era in Pittsburgh were: a 1907 flood that left the city under 14 feet of water; Andrew Carnegie's dedication of the Carnegie Institute (now Carnegie Mellon University); an annexation that made Pittsburgh the sixth largest US city; and the city's sesquicentennial (150th birthday). All-time Pittsburgh Pirates great Honus Wagner won three straight batting titles, setting the stage for the Pirates' 1909 World Series championship team.
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| Postcard promoting Pittsburgh's 150th anniversary celebration in 1908 |
The Tilburys resided at 811-817 Farragut Street in the East Liberty section (11th Ward) of the city. The 1920 federal census shows that Corwin was employed as a salesman in a department store. He later was manager of the American Press Company.
Ironically, their new home was just 65 miles from the ancient Laurel Hill farm where Corwin's grandfather, John Minerd Jr., had been born, and left behind in 1817 to migrate to Ohio.
In keeping in touch with their Minerd cousins in Indiana, Eva sent a Christmas gift in 1917. Her cover note read: "This famous book has always been such a delight to me - tho I have never owned a copy - that I am sending it to you with the thought that you will enjoy the bit of nonsense together with many others beside myself."
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| Turn of the century Pittsburgh, showing Exposition Park -- home of the Pirates baseball team -- at lower right |
The
photo of Eva at left was taken in August 1920 in Monroeville, IN.
Corwin and Eva are known to have traveled from Pittsburgh to near Dixon, OH to attend the funeral of his uncle James Minerd in 1929. In June 1932, Corwin sent many of his household items, including rugs and furniture, to his cousin Reuben Minerd, who lived on the Ohio-Indiana border.
Eva passed away on May 27, 1931, at age 78. She was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinsburg. A search for her obituary in Oakmont's newspaper, the Allegheny Valley Advance Leader, proved fruitless.
Eva's grave was not marked for a number of years. In a May 1935 letter, Corwin wrote: "I went out to the cemetery last week and set out some geraniums on the grave of Eva and her mother. Was there Sunday to see if the frosts have had hurt them, but they are all right."
Corwin outlived his wife by 16 years. A 1935 letter written by his half-sister Leona Thorne said:
Corwin has been fairly well this summer with the exception of two rather bad spell. A card this morning tells us he is felling better again. If he didn't have to worry over his property he would be much better.
Another of Lena's 1935 letters said:
It is too bad Corwin does nor write oftener - but I know he has not been so very well. Not really sick tho'. The depression has brought on property worries - which do not tend to make me feel like doing much of anything except say bad words.
The photo seen here shows Corwin and his brother Mentzer,
possibly taken at the Minerd farm on the Indiana-Ohio state line. Mentzer's son
George recalled that Corwin "sometimes would spend the summers out there
[on the Minerd farm], sometimes a month, two months ... just like a
vacation."
In 1937, Corwin lived in the fashionable Pittsburgh suburb of Oakmont, with the Brooks family, at 510 Delaware Avenue in Plum Twp. That year, in August, Corwin's sister in Chicago wrote:
Corwin finds writing difficult since his illness, so much so, that I have been looking after his affairs in Pittsburgh and attending to his correspondence. He still drives about Oakmont, and is kept quite busy especially since Mr. Brooks has been ill. He hasn't been out of town since he returned last May - and we discourage his taking long trips on account of the hard driving over the mountains.
Corwin wrote a will on July 11, 1938. Of his assets, he left
40 percent each to his sisters Leona Thorne
and Annette Blood, and the remaining
20 percent to his nephew George Tilbury. He also left his cousin Reuben Minerd
"all my house hold goods and furniture now located at his place of
residence in the State of Indiana." Sometime later, perhaps in 1939 or
1940, during his last known visit to the Minerd farm, he outright gave them his
items.
From Oakmont, in July 1939, Corwin wrote to his cousin Goldie (Minerd) Moennig. His letter speaks of lady friends and travels with his nephew George Tilbury. Among other things, he said:
My health at 86
and a half is quite good. I really have no right to complain. However, it irks
me sometimes that I cannot do the things I used to do - I should know better
than to try, but agressiveness is and always has been my middle name and it is
rather hard to curb my natural ambitions. I still drive my Desota about town
here and now and then out in the country.
Corwin lived the last nine years of his life in the residence of Sarah B. McCurdy on Hulton Road in Oakmont. Fred Shoemaker, the future executor of his estate, later said that: "...he was 93 when he died, ... and we carried him along, his rents weren't hardly enough to take care of his property and expenses."
He passed away at the McCurdy home on May 16, 1947. In June 1948, per the terms of the court decision, a grave marker of dark barre granite was erected for Corwin and Eva at Woodlawn Cemetery. The marker is within 150 yards of the tall transmission tower for WTAE-TV (seen here), the ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh, a longtime landmark for drivers on the Parkway East/Interstate 376 in Wilkinsburg.
Copyright © 2002-2005, 2008 Mark A. Miner