Tilden Selmes was the son of Tilden and Sarah Benton Selmes.  Born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri where Tilden Selmes, Sr. served as mayor and owned a prospering store and bank, the young boy spent several months each year with his mother’s Vermont relatives.  In the early 1880s, Tilden graduated from Yale University and headed west to settle in the Dakotas and establish a ranching enterprise.  On June 7, 1883, Martha ‘Patty’ Flandrau was married to Tilden.  It was in the Dakotas that they became neighbors with Theodore Roosevelt and became lifelong friends.  

Patty and Tilden had a daughter, name Isabella, in March of 1886 at Dinsmore Farm.  In April 1887, following several years of blizzard winters and poor legal prospects in the Dakotas, the Selmes family moved to St.Paul, where Tilden took a position as assistant counsel in the legal department of the Northern Pacific Railroad.

After several months of failing health, Tilden died of liver cancer in August of 1895 at the Dismore farm.   He is buried in the Dinsmore Graveyard.

Return to Interactive Family Tree