Nathaniel P. Tallmadge was born in Chatham, New York in 1795. Tallmadge was a blacksmith, farmer and lumber merchant, before attending college to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1818 and practiced in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Tallmadge was active in politics in the 1820s, becoming a member of the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate. In 1833, he was elected to the United States Senate as a member of the Conservatives. In 1839, he ran as a Whig and was not reelected until the Whigs controlled both the house and Senate in 1840. He declined a nomination for vice president in 1840 and a cabinet post and ambassadorship in 1841. He did accept the governorship of the Wisconsin territory until 1844 and decided to stay there. He built a home in Fond du Lac, practiced law, and served as an unofficial ambassador for Wisconsin after his term.

Tallmadge believed in premonitions as a young man. One allowed him to narrowly escaped death aboard the USS Princeton when a cannon exploded, killing five. By the 1840s, he admitted he was visited by spirits. After the death of Vice President John C. Calhoun, Tallmadge said the politician’s spirit communicated with him.

Tallmadge became a Spiritualist at the very beginning of the movement when religions condemned the practice and the press were skeptical at best. He wrote, “No cause in the history of the world has made such rapid and unprecedented progress as “Spiritualism” since its first introduction. Unaided, and without an effort on the part of its friends and advocates, and with an opposition unparalleled for its perseverance and its bitterness, it has moved onward with a momentum as resistless as it is overwhelming.”

Tallmadge became president of the Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual Knowledge established in 1854 in New York. It published the Christian Spiritualist and offered free seances to the public. He also participated in the publication of several books, including: Spiritualism Versus Christianity, Modern Christian Spiritualism, and a two-volume set on Spiritualism authored by John W. Edmonds and George T. Dexter.

He believed that, “Whatever may be the origin of these extraordinary phenomena, whether they be spiritual or philosophical, they are equally entitled to the consideration of every intelligent mind….”

In his later years, Tallmadge moved to Harmonia, a planned community for Spiritualists in Battle Creek, Michigan, and died in 1864.

Additional Reading:

Daniels, J. W. (1865) Spiritualism versus Christianity. Miller, Orton, and Mulligan, New York, NY.

Edmonds, John W. and George T Dexter. (1853) Spiritualism: Vol I & II. Partridge & Brittan, New York, NY.

Lanman, Charles (1887). Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States. Joseph M. Morrison, New York, NY.

Raymond, William (1851). Biographical Sketches of the Distinguished men of Columbia County. Weed, Parsons and Company, Albany, NY.

Modern Christian Spiritualism: Selections and Extracts from Recent Publications Relating to Spiritual Science. 1863. Collins, Printer, Philadelphia, PA

Daguerreotype portrait of New York politician Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, taken by photographer Mathew Brady at the United States Capitol at Washington, D.C., March 1849. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University

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