William Minns Tileston (1838-1880) was a charter member of The Lambs. He was elected between 1875-1879. Tileston was a founder of the Westminster Kennel Club and was a celebrated dog breeder and marksman. He tragically died in a disaster at the original Madison Square Garden that killed him and three others.
He was born in New Rochelle, New York, son of William Tileston and Mary Bradford Tree. After college he travelled to China in the 1860s as a representative of Olyphant & Co., a merchant trading company which transported tea and silk from China to the U.S. He left China for California, where he purchased a forty-acre ranch in Los Angeles County. In 1869 he married Anita Erulana Mellus in Los Angeles. They had four children in nine years. Following the Civil War, the family returned East.
During this time he became a member of The Lambs, which was started by his friends in December 1874.
He published a series of witty articles about “sporting life” in magazines such as the Spirit of the Times, the Turf, and the Forest and Stream, where he held the title “kennel editor.” His love for dogs led him and several friends to run dog shows, which led to the creation in 1877 of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
On April 21, 1880, Tileston was outside the original Madison Square Garden when the west wall came tumbling down to Madison Avenue near 26th Street. Overheated timbers caused by gas heating brought down 100 feet of the brick and mortar, carrying away a major portion of the structure. Tileston and three others on the premises were buried under the debris; more than 20 were seriously injured.
The New York Times reported:
“Another name was added to the list of deaths caused by the Madison Square Garden disaster by the death yesterday morning of Col. William M. Tileston, of No. 11 East Thirty-Eighth Street. Col. Tileston had just left the building, and turned to walk up Madison Avenue, when the wall fell and buried him beneath a pile of bricks and broken timber. Both of his legs and his left arm were broken. He also received a severe cut in the head. When released from the debris he was placed in an ambulance, and, at his own request, driven to St. Luke’s Hospital, in West Fifty-fourth Street, instead of his own house.”
“It was believed from the first that his injuries would terminate fatally, and as he was very weak from loss of blood and the terrible shock to which he had been subjected, no attempt to submit him to surgical treatment was made. Soon after reaching the hospital he became unconscious, and remained in that condition until 3:30 yesterday morning. In the meantime, his friends had been notified of his whereabouts, and when he regained consciousness he found his wife, his mother, his children, and a few intimate friends at his bedside. He sank rapidly, and at 4 o’clock died, while suffering the most excruciating pain. Col. Tileston leaves a wife and four children–three boys and one girl.”
It is unclear where he picked up the sobriquet “colonel” which is usually a Southern tradition.
The Herald said, “Personally, Mr. Tileston was a man in all that pertains to beauty of physique. He stood straight, bore himself well, made friends easily, and kept them easily. He was a favorite in social circles, and in the clubs, and from many resorts will be missed with regret. His fancy for sports led him much to the Garden.”
Tileston’s dogs were so famous that they were given prominent coverage in his obituary notices. The 1880 Westminster Kennel Club Show was postponed for five months, and at the show his dogs were raffled off, with proceeds going to benefit his widow and young children.
Tileston is interred in his family mausoleum in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.
–Researched and written by Shepherd Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, 2025.