William Wilson Talcott

William Wilson Talcott (December 4, 1878 – August 24, 1922) was an American football player, school teacher, newspaper publisher, and ice cream manufacturer.

Talcott played college football for the University of Michigan in 1897 and 1898 and was the starting quarterback for the undefeated 1898 Michigan Wolverines football team. After graduating from Michigan, he worked as a school teacher in Illinois and Michigan.

He entered the newspaper publishing business in 1905 and published The Englewood Economist from September 1906 to January 1918. From 1918 to 1920, he was the business manager of the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune. He later went into the ice cream business in Chicago.

In August 1922, Talcott led a legal battle with the head of a so-called "love cult" with which his wife had become involved. The legal battle received national newspaper coverage. When his wife refused to part ways with the cult, Talcott committed suicide by jumping from an excursion boat off the shore of Chicago with rocks in his pockets.

Early years Talcott was born in December 1878 in Valparaiso, Indiana. He was the second of five children of Charles Ransom Talcott and Harriet E. Malone, who were married in October 1873. His father was a native of Valparaiso who began his career as a school teacher. From 1874 to 1886, his father was the publisher of the Porter County Vidette, a local newspaper in Valparaiso. He attended the public schools in Englewood and graduated from Englewood High School. The 1896 Englewood team, led by Talcott and end Clayton Teetzel, won the Cook County football championship. The season ended with a 38–6 victory over Hyde Park, which was described in the Englewood High School newspaper as follows: "The final game with Hyde Park ... was the greatest of all. To defeat our ancient rivals was the happiest ambition of the team. The defeat of '95 still rankles in the breasts of seven of the team, and they were determined to do or die. 'It was a glorious victory,' the score being 38 to 6, when time was called because of darkness with ten minutes yet to play."

University of Michigan Louis Elbel composed Michigan's fight song "The Victors" as a tribute to the 1898 football team (pictured with original sheet). In the fall of 1897, Talcott and his Englewood teammate Clayton Teetzel enrolled at the University of Michigan as students in the Literary Department. During Talcott's freshman year, he played as a backup quarterback for the 1897 Michigan Wolverines football team. He also joined the Theta Delta Chi fraternity in 1897. In its annual publication, The Shield, the fraternity reported that the Michigan chapter was "proud" in having Talcott play "quarter in a number of the games."

As a sophomore, Talcott was the starting quarterback in six of ten games for the undefeated 1898 Michigan football team that won the school's first Western Conference (as the Big Ten was then known) championship and prompted Louis Elbel to compose Michigan's fight song, "The Victors." In the early days of football, players were required to play on both offense and defense. On defense, Talcott was a linebacker. Blocking was known at the time as "interference," and after a 23–0 victory over Notre Dame in October 1898, The Michigan Alumnus wrote that "Talcott shone in the interference."

During his junior year, Talcott did not return to the varsity football team, and was instead the captain of the junior class football team. As a senior in the fall of 1900, Talcott was an assistant coach under Langdon Lea for Michigan's varsity football team, "winning quite a reputation for himself in that line." Talcott also served as the Chairman of the Senior Literary Social Committee. In early 1904, Talcott wrote a letter to the secretary of his graduating class at Michigan, informing his former classmates that he was the principal of the high school in Bessemer, Michigan. In his letter, Talcott noted that he had "fully decided to make teaching his life work" and "expressed his belief that participation in athletics and other activities of student life, as supplementary to the work of class-room, and library, and laboratory, might form a very valuable part of the preparation of the teacher, in giving self-control, confidence, and knowledge of human nature."

On August 24, 1904, Talcott married Shirley J. Patterson, at Jackson, Michigan. They listed their address at the time as Hurley, Wisconsin, a city located a short distance across the border from Bessemer, Michigan.

Newspaper publishing

In approximately 1905, Talcott followed his father into the newspaper publishing business. He began his publishing career with the Englewood News, serving the Englewood section of Chicago.

The paper's circulation grew to 138,750 by 1922. Though its name was later changed to the Southtown Economist, the newspaper founded by the Talcott brothers was still publishing 100 years later.

By 1912, James Talcott had left The Englewood Economist and moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Talcott and his wife had three children.

In late February 1920, he wrote in a postcard to The Englewood Economist: "We are spending a few days in Switzerland, Southern France and Italy before sailing March 6th from Naples. Will see you before April 1st. Give my best to all the folks."

Ice cream business

By 1922, Talcott had left the newspaper business and was working for The Hydrox Company, the largest ice cream company in Chicago. He was described in some sources as "head of the city's largest ice-cream manufacturing concern," but he described himself in February 1922 as the company's advertising manager. He wrote an article that was published in The Soda Fountain in February 1922 urging ice cream manufacturers and vendors to adopt a sales campaign to promote winter sales of their products as an aid to good health. Talcott wrote that "the combined ice cream interests of the country should be able in the same way to get the people, men, women and children to stand on the corners and eat ice cream in a snowstorm for the sake of improved health, increased vitality, and strengthened constitution obtainable from eating plenty of the delicious product." Moore also gave lectures on titles that included, "The Origin of Sex" and "Healing the Sick Through Sex Understanding." Hattie Cartwright, wife of Illinois Supreme Court Justice James H. Cartwright, admitted giving Moore $4,000. Mrs. Talcott's sister, Mrs. Dedo Patterson Wilkinson, wrote a letter to Talcott begging him to "do everything possible to get his wife out of 'control' of 'Dr.' Moore." The letter from Mrs. Talcott's sister continued, "I talked to Moore and tried to make him let up; only he wouldn't. Something must be done with him for she [Mrs. Talcott] is not responsible, but I am not susceptible." Talcott's brother later recalled, "My brother was undoubtedly despondent. He recently brooded incessantly over domestic troubles. He worried as no man ever worried before."

Criminal complaint against Moore When his wife refused to cease her association with Moore, Talcott resorted to legal proceedings. In mid-August 1922, Talcott, acting in the name of his wife, swore out a complaint against Moore, charging that Moore was deceiving wealthy women from the "best homes" in Chicago into turning over thousands of dollars to "heal their homes" and make them "divorce proof." Moore was brought into police court to face the charges on August 17, 1922. At the hearing, he produced typewritten testimonials bearing the names of "the city's most prominent families." with Talcott billed as the "nemesis of the love cult," and the "leader of the famous 'husband's rebellion.'" At the resumed hearing on August 22, Judge John Henderson heard testimony from several witnesses. Hattie Cartwright testified that Moore was a fake healer, noting that he claimed to be "greater than Christ" and to have the ability to raise the dead, yet he "couldn't raise hair on his own bald spot." Talcott declared to police that he believed his wife's mind had been affected by an infatuation for Moore's teachings.

Talcott's suicide On the morning of August 24, Talcott was reportedly despondent and disappeared. That afternoon, a well-dressed man matching Talcott's appearance, climbed to the upper deck of a small excursion steamer, the "Favorite," and jumped from the railing as it travelled from Lincoln Park to the Navy Pier. Talcott's brother-in-law, George E. Repp, told police that he believed the note was Talcott's effort to record a threat made by Mrs. Talcott. Repp described an angry encounter at the Talcott residence:

Talcott, in writing the threat, was but quoting the words of his own wife. I was with them in the Talcott home the day before Talcott testified against Dr. Moore. Mrs. Talcott then threatened to reveal happenings of six years ago if he didn't drop out of Monroe's prosecution."

In November 1922, Moore was tried, convicted and sentenced to 90 days in jail, but the conviction was later overturned. At the trial, Mrs. Talcott testified that the institute aimed "to establish ultimate peace in the world by making people happy, giving them good health, mental and financial."

Moore relocated to a 130-acre farm located five miles outside of Harvard, Illinois, along the Wisconsin border. Moore established a commune that he called the "Humanity Trust" in "Heaven City." Mrs. Talcott stayed at Moore's side until his death in 1963 at age 82. Mrs. Talcott died in 1978, and Heaven City was disbanded in 1979.