Tilden Trust

The Tilden Trust was a fund established in the will of Samuel J. Tilden upon his death on August 4, 1886. The will, dated April 23, 1884, provided for the establishment of a 'Tilden Trust' to "establish and maintain a free library and reading room in the City of New York." The estate Tilden left was valued at almost $10 million, consisted of $200,000 invested in iron mines in both New York and Michigan; another $200,000 was invested in real estate. A further $1 million was left to Tilden's relatives, and a total of $110,000 was dedicated to providing municipal services to New Lebanon, New York, and Yonkers, New York. The remainder, a balance of about $5 million was left to the library.^[1]

George H. Tilden, a nephew of Samuel Tilden, filed a lawsuit in the New York State Supreme Court; soon followed by many other Tilden relatives. The relatives contested the 35th clause of the will, which established the Tilden Trust. The case ended in October 1891, when the New York Court of Appeals declared the clause invalid. Under the ruling, all of the money left by Tilden was to go to his descendants. Through several legal deals, the trust was still founded, and had a fund of two and a quarter million dollars. By that time, the money was not enough to fund a complete library, and in 1895, the Tilden Trust was merged with the Lenox Library and Astor Library to form the New York Public Library.^[2]