Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1875-02-17
rILroN's TRUE STORY"
A sensation Of the Beechev Trial.

4 Sensation OF the BeccbeY Trial.
The event of last Thursday in the
Beecher trial was the production by
Evarts of the original Tire Story"
of Tilton, which everybody supposed
was lost. The reporter says:
On reassemtling, Mr.. Evarts at once
began to prepare the way for the great
incident of the day, which was the
production of manuscript copy Of
TiltoD's unpublished and supposed 70
be destroyed
"TRUE STORY"
Tilton had testified day or two ago
to the fact that he bad recently found
in his house q few Of the last pages Of
this document, and these pages had
just been delivered over to Mr.. Evarts,
who. holding them In his hands,
said:
q. Now, these are all that you have
been able to find that you know OF es
scrap.
@. And there is no COPY in any form
of any OF the rest of it? A. Not that
know Of
q. Not that you know Of? 4. Not
to my knowledge, sir.
Having thus cleared his way, the
cross-eXaminer said:
q. Mr.. Tilton, please listen TO what
l shall now read you, and say whether
you recognize it as the commencement
of this true story. Reading:
One day last month, when l was
in northern New Hampshire, q scam
dalous publication burst like a cloud
over my home in Brooklyn, and shed
sudden shadow on my wife's good
name,n
! Mr.. Evarts--Do you remember that
as the first sentence in your True
! Story" A. ! don't remember that
precise phraseology, but something of
the kind. ] can't positively swear TO
these exact words.
1t was Immediately seen that Evarts
actually had written copy of the
"true story" in his possession. We
were amazed. This document, which
was written by Tilton some three
years ago, and kept as secret paper,
though privately shown by its author
to number Of persons, purported to
be veracious history of the Beecher-
Tilton scandal, its origin, develop
ment and falsehoods. Mr.. Tilton had
testified that he had not seen the docu-
ment for two years, and that last year
his wife told him she had destroyed it,
yet here it evidently was. The pro.
liability of course is that Mrs. Tilton,
instead of destroying it, had kept it in
her possession as q defense and that
when she left his house last fall she
took it with her, but that in doing so
she overlooked some OF the pages
which Tilton found after Der depart
ure.
Everybody, including Tilton him
self and his counsel, were startled to
; find that the thing wac still in exist
ence. Evarts went on reading the
narrative sentence by sentence, and at
the end of each sentence he asked Wit
ness If he had written IL or if he recog-
nized it.
Mr.. Tilton often answered in q
, doubtful way was often unable t.
swear to the authenticity of sentences
but nearly always admitted that he be.
lieved them to be correct in substance
After number of sentences had been
read, TiltOn's counsel made hard eff.
fort to keep out the remainder, but
Judge Nelson decided otherwise, and
it was all got in.
At one point there was break in
the document, part of it being miss
ing, but those parts of importance &c
TO the defense were all in their possess
ion, 1t turned out TO be an elaborate
history of his troubles with Bowen and
Beecher, and seemed TO be written in
methodical detail for the purpose o.
showing the entire innocence of both
Mrs. riItOn and Beecher. 1t ended
with the written and solemn denial by
g both these parties OF all the charge.
made against them.
1t would be useless for me 10 attempt
5 the condensation Of q document whicl
is sure to be universally read.