Lee Stephen Tillotson

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Lee Stephen Tillotson (December 8, 1874 – July 18, 1957) was a Vermont lawyer and military officer who served as Adjutant General of the Vermont National Guard before World War I. Born in Bakersfield, Vermont, he worked for the Central Vermont Railway before studying law. He joined the Vermont National Guard in 1898 and, during the Spanish–American War, served as a musician and later became an officer. He was admitted to the Vermont bar in 1902 and practiced law in St. Albans, where he also served as a municipal judge (1904–1906). In 1910 he was appointed Adjutant General, the first to hold the job who was not a Civil War veteran.

Tillotson resigned from the guard in 1917 to join the regular Army for World War I, becoming a major in the Adjutant General’s Corps. He served in France as adjutant of the 93rd Division and later worked with the American Expeditionary Forces Services of Supply. After the war he returned to Vermont, tried to regain the adjutant general post, and then continued his Army career. He transferred to the Infantry in 1920 and held various posts, including in Hawaii, and joined the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in 1927. From 1929 to 1933 he was the Army’s liaison to the Senate Committee on Military Affairs. He retired in 1938 as a colonel and judge advocate for the First Corps Area in Boston.

Tillotson wrote several works, including The Articles of War, Annotated. He was an accomplished Mason, achieving the 33rd degree and Vermont’s youngest Grand Master. After leaving the Army he lived in several Vermont towns, practiced law, and served on Newfane’s Board of Selectmen. He died in Townshend, Vermont, after complications from a fall and was buried in Parish Cemetery in Newfane. He married Ethel A. Adams in 1917, and they had a son, John Adams Tillotson (1919–2005).