A manufacturer, Tillotson made his fortune with latex surgical gloves and balloons. In the 1950s he bought the Balsams, a once-elegant hotel in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, and renovated it into a grand 15,000-acre resort.
As the equivalent of the area’s mayor, and noticing there was no place to vote nearby, he helped incorporate Dixville Notch into a town and opened a polling place at the hotel. By opening the booths at midnight each primary day, Dixville Notch was the first place to report voting results — and by tradition, Tillotson voted first, making his the first vote cast in every Presidential election since 1960. He died October 17 from pneumonia. He was 102.