Edward W. Townsend

Townsend was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on February 10, 1855; his father was Horace Gilbert Townsend.^[1] He attended private and public schools in that city. He went to San Francisco, California, in 1875 and engaged in newspaper and literary work. He married Annie Lake on April 16, 1884.^[2]

He moved to New York City in 1893 and continued his reportorial and literary pursuits. In 1900, he became a resident of Montclair, New Jersey.

He was an author of novels, plays, short stories, as well as a textbook on the United States Constitution. His most popular fictional writings were his "Chimmie Fadden" Bowery boy stories.^[3]

Townsend was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses, serving in office from March 4, 1911, to March 3, 1915, but was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1914 to the Sixty-fourth Congress.^[4]

After leaving Congress, he served as postmaster of Montclair from 1915 to 1923.^[4] Townsend moved to New York City in 1924 and resumed newspaper and literary pursuits, and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

He died in New York City on March 15, 1942, and was interred in Forest Hill CemeteryinUtica, New York.^[5]

• Works by or about Edward W. TownsendatInternet Archive
• Works by Edward W. TownsendatLibriVox (public domain audiobooks)  
• United States Congress. "Edward W. Townsend (id: T000332)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Edward Waterman TownsendatThe Political Graveyard
• Article on Edward W. Townsend in August-September 1895 edition of The Bookman (New York)