Hosea Townsend (June 16, 1840 – March 4, 1909) was an American attorney and politician who served two terms as a U.S. Representative from Colorado from 1889 to 1893.[1]
Appointed by Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, he was a United States judge for the southern district of the Indian Territory from 1897 to 1907.
He moved to Colorado in 1879 and settled in Silver Cliff in 1881.[1] He made and lost a fortune in the mining business.[2]
Congress
Townsend was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-first and Fifty-second Congresses (March 4, 1889 – March 3, 1893). He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1892.
Later career
He served as delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1892.[1]
He was a United States judge for the southern district of the Indian Territory from 1897 to 1907.[1] He served on the Court of Appeals.[3] He was first appointed by President William McKinley and he was re-appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 and 1906.[5] Oklahoma achieved statehood in 1907 and the Indian Territory court was closed.[2] He remained in Ardmore and practiced law.[2]
Townsend had a forceful personality. In one case, a Seventh Day Adventist refused to perform jury duty on a Sunday, and Townsend found him in contempt of court. He discharged a jury that returned a verdict with which he disagreed saying it was "discharged for the term, and I never want to see any of you in my court again." Yet he extended leniency to a bootlegger whose family needed him at home to keep food on the table.
He married Anna Augusta Barnes on November 28, 1865[4] and they had two children, John Barnes Townsend and Anna Bell Townsend.[3][4] After they moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma of the Indian Territory, Anna decided that the area needed a library and obtained funding from Andrew Carnegie about 1903. The Ardmore Carnegie Library was opened on October 1, 1906. Anna and Hosea donated 800 books for the library.[5]
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