Tilden R. Selmes: Where he lived and worked circa 1858

There is a house standing -  in 2026 - at 514 North St., that may have been the house that Tilden R. Selmes purchased for his family in 1858. The lot is one and the same. 2026 Photo by Mary Lou Montgomery

Tilden R. Selmes, a banker and Main Street merchant in Hannibal as early the mid 1840s, long made a home for himself and his young family in boarding houses scattered across Hannibal’s downtown. That changed when he finally laid claim to a house he could call his own, located on Lots 7 and 8, in Block 37, Old Town Hannibal.

He purchased the house on Oct. 30, 1858, from Edward B. Talcott and wife, Mary Talcott. The sales price was $4,100.

Talcott, a land agent for the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, was instrumental in acquiring right of way for his company’s rails through Hannibal.

Talcott, who left Hannibal upon selling his house to Tilden Selmes, went on to become a general superintendent of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad. 

Mr. Selmes continued to own the house, selling it in 1866, when he disposed of his Hannibal property at the war’s end. He relocated his family to 1443 Maine St., Quincy, Ill., where Tilden Selmes died of war injuries in 1870.

Today, the address for the Hannibal property is 514 North Street. While the National Register of Historic Places Inventory suggests the house was built in 1870 by Henry C. Schultz, it is within the realm of possibility that the house now standing on this double lot could be the same house that Tilden Selmes purchased from Edward B. Talcott in 1858. Regardless, the house standing in 2026 is on the same lots where the Selmes family lived.

(Recorded deeds detail property transfers, but do not offer information on specific structures located upon that land.)

Family residence

Sarah Benton Selmes, wife of Tilden R. Selmes, had two sisters, Eliza (1836-1923) and Ellen (1834-1914) Benton. After the Selmes family settled into their new home in the 500 block of North Street in 1858, the two Benton sisters, who lived in Vermont, made regular visits to Hannibal, helping their sister with her young children.

At the time of the 1860 census, 19-year-old Ellen Benton was staying with the Selmes family in their house on North Street. The census records the family:

Tilden R. Selmes, 54, born in England in 1806.

Sarah Benton Selmes, 36, born 1823 in Vermont.

Sarah E. Selmes, 8, born in 1852, Hannibal.

Tilden R. Selmes Jr., 6, born in 1854, Hannibal.

Ellen Benton (T.R. Selmes sister-in-law), 19.

Jesse Webb, 19, a mulatto, presumably the housekeeper.

Bank building

According to the National Register of Historic Places Inventory, the same year that Tilden Selmes purchased the house on North Street, he had a banking building constructed at 211 Center St. “The bank did not survive the war, but the building remains one of the oldest banking structures west of the Mississippi.”

That building, purchased in 2025 by Joni and James Wilson, has what is believed to be the original bank vault on the structure’s first floor. The key to the vault has been passed down from building owner to owner during the ensuing decades. Joni was handed the key by the building’s previous owner, Brad Walden.

The vault referred to in the registry documents is most likely the same vault spoken of in a July 2, 1861 journal entry, written by one of Sarah Benton Selmes’ sisters, Ellen or Eliza, while living with the Selmes family on North Street.

The journal is contained within the Selmes Family collection,  Arizona Historical Society. 

Miss Benton wrote:

“Some fear that Major Harris is intending to attack this place and I should not wonder, since he has boasted all winter that he would equip a regiment from Mr. Selmes’ store (which was located on the northeast corner of Hill and Main) and take the money from his bank vault” on Center Street.

Mr. Selmes was staunch Union supporter, and at political odds with the Secession movement.

Thomas A. Harris (circa 1826-1895), was a former Missouri State Guard brigadier general who had fought at the First Battle of Lexington, Mo., in September 1861. He later became a congressman representing Missouri. He did not win re-election in 1864. (Source: Emerging Civil War, by Phil Greenwalt.)

In 1861, Harris, an attorney, made his home on the southwest corner of Fifth and North streets, across the street and a few houses east, within the same block, as the Selmes house. Harris lost the house in 1861 to foreclosure. The legal address of the former Harris property is Lot 4, Block 32, Hannibal, Mo.

The aforementioned Selmes Family collection, preserved by the Arizona Historical Society, contains a series of letters that Sarah Benton Selmes and her husband, Tilden, wrote to her extended family during their years living in Hannibal.

The following notations are reflective of the years they spent living on North Street in Hannibal.

• Tilden Selmes wrote, in a letter to Eliza Benton on Dec. 3, 1858: “… we have been painting and fixing up, we have a most excellent new pianoforte and Sarah is much pleased with it, and we really are much gratified with our new home.”

• Tilden Selmes wrote, in a letter to Ellen Benton on Dec. 3, 1858: “We are fixing up our new home. We have been putting down carpets, putting up furniture, fixing the stoves. We have a carpenter at work fixing closets etc., etc., etc. We are all of us decidedly pleased with our situation and prospects. Sarah and Mother (Nancy Benton 1796-1870) are nearly tired and they have both a little cough.”

• Sarah Benton Selmes (1823-1918) wrote, in a letter to her brother, Frank Benton (1826-1900), on Dec. 18, 1858: “Mother (Mrs. Benton) is quite as well as usual again and even better she says - I know you have worried about her. It is a long job to fix up a large house, attend to company and go out besides; but it is nearly done and we are very pleasantly situated. Mother has superintendended (stet) my bread making twice lately and Mr. Selmes is so delighted that we have Vermont-like bread. We have a cow, six turkeys and two dozen chickens in the barn, … and a riding horse.”

• Sarah Benton Selmes wrote, in a letter to her brother, Frank Benton, on Feb. 20, 1861: “In the house we make something from the grocery keep us - we have not spent five dollars out this winter. … Everybody is living on the do without system.”

• Sarah Benton Selmes wrote, in a letter to her brother, Frank Benton, on Dec. 1, 1861: “Our section is now quite quiet and orderly, but rumors of approaching hostilities … are rife about us. Poor Missouri seems doomed to be made this sacrifice. I expect to leave here and board or keep house alone after the 1st of May.

• Tilden R. Selmes wrote, in a letter to his sister-in-law, on Dec. 21, 1861: “The Secessionists attempted to burn Bear Creek Bridge last night within a mile of the city, they have been shooting into passenger cars within a week and yesterday night tore up and destroyed two miles of track on the North Mo. road within 50 miles of here so that we cannot get our mails from St. Louis.

“I am perfectly reconciled to losing my property and I have ceased to call down judgments on the thieving, cheating, rascally secessionist for robbing me, so far I have lost about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars that I can count as gone and what I considered my best notes which I reserved are getting worse very fast, so I shall lose nearly as much more and be fairly cleaned out all right. I sing There’s a good time coming.”

He continues: “I like the President’s Message, I also like Jim Lane and Secretary Cimeron. This whole matter will come out about right some day but slavery must eventually be wiped out and the people of the Untied States are fast coming to that opinion.”

At the rear of the house at 514 North St.,  is a stone wall recessed into the hillside, believed to have been part of brick two-story stable. 2026 photo by Mary Lou Montgomery

Joni Wilson holds the keys to the vault in the building she and her husband, James, recently purchased at 211 Center St. According to the National Register of Historic Places Inventory, the building first served as a bank operated by Tilden R. Selmes circa 1858. Contributed photo.

The building now numbered 211 Center Street was originally constructed for use as a bank, The original bank vault remains on the first floor of this building. Photo by Mary Lou Montgomery.

This advertisement was posted in the 1859-1860 Hannibal City Directory, accessed via the Hannibal Free Public Library’s website. Note that the bank’s address is listed as the corner of Main and Hill streets, which was at the time the location of the Selmes store. Mr. Selmes subsequently opened a bank at what is now known as 211 Center St.