Brother Townsend, by Cecil Bethea

Twenty-three passengers on the Mayflower were ancestors of Prescott Townsend  ancestors. Another forebear was the only man to sign the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of the Confederation, and the Constitution. On almost any route that Townsend took to grade school on Boston’s Beacon Hill, he would past a monument to an ancestor or to an event in which some kinsman had participated

Townsend was born in 1895 when the blue bloods of Boston still considered themselves Brahmins and felt contented.  Henry James called them, “the sifted few”.  Besides his inherited wealth, his father was also the head of a large coal company.  When Townsend was fifteen his father died.  At sixteen he told his mother that he liked other boys.  She merely answered, “Be careful.”.

During his eighteenth summer, he went out West to work in logging and mining camps of Idaho and Montana where he met people unlike himself.  The International Workers of the World, derisively called the Wobblies were trying to organize a union amongst the unskilled workers and hobos with whom Townsend worked.  He developed a lifelong interest in street boys and drifters, the outcasts of society.

At Harvard, he evidently was more interested in tennis than books, but he survived.  So many attractions drew him into a very active social life.  After all, he was in the SOCIAL REGISTER.  Harvard was very pro-British during the first years of World War I.  To do his part, he joined the Naval Reserve.  After the United States had entered the war, Townsend was called to the colors, where he performed various duties including being commanding officer of the Naval Unit at Texas A & M.  After being demobilized, he returned to Harvard to finish his senior year and later to enter law school.

Law school palled, so at the end of his first year he quit.  So many interesting things lured him on to various adventures. In the tropics of Mexico, he was the co-discoverer of an unknown salamander which was named for him.  In Paris, Andre Gide recommended the deserts of North Africa.  Townsend organized a small caravan with willing. complaisant, or hungry young men.  During his visit the Rift Rebellion, an attempt by the Arabs to oust the French was taking place.  One small battle interrupted the progress of his party.  He insisted that the fight stop because he as an American had precedent over their squabbles.  Strangely enough the combatants ceased their gunfire while the American passed.  How things have changed for American tourist!

Back in Paris, Townsend became involved with the Bohemians; in fact, Bohemia became a part of him for the rest of his life.  In Boston he was the patron of poets and a little theater.  Actually he owned the building where the theater had its quarters.  His house became a home for various nomads of the artistic and Gay worlds.  Although he bragged he had never paid for sex, it was difficult to turn down a man who is supplying you with bed and board.  During his later years, all of his tenants chipped in to pay a handsome young man to supply Townsend’s needs

During the 1950's Townsend was much more than a horny old man.  He was a Gay activist.  Actually one could make that ACTIVIST.  The Boston chapter of the Mattachine Society had him for one of his co-founders.  Just as all the chapters had strife between the radicals and the conservatives.  The organization asked him to make his efforts to repeal the sodomy laws of Massachusetts a personal cause rather an organizational one.  Townsend did not want understanding and sympathy from the public but rights.  Confrontational was his usual means of operation. On April 17^th, 1965, he was in Washington for the first Gay demonstration.  Seven Gay men, three Lesbians, and a straight woman friend marched in front of the White House. No doubt he was the oldest.  In 1970, he drove down from Boston for the first parade to commemorate the Stonewall protest.  Even at seventy-six, he was amongst the first two hundred to start the parade which grew to thousands.

In his later years Townsend was not welcomed by other Gays because he had evidently forgotten the meaning of personal hygiene and looked like derelict.  No matter he was a participant in Gay functions.

Prescott Townsend should be remembered for uncompromising attitude toward Gay rights, his early organizing of Gay, and his early participation in early Gay demonstrations.

He was a Founding Brother.

© 9 Nov 2005 

About the Author 

Although I have done other things, my fame now rests upon the durability of my partnership with Carl Shepherd; we have been together for forty-two years and nine months as of today, August 18the, 2012.

        Although I was born in Macon, Georgia in 1928, I was raised in Birmingham during the Great Depression.  No doubt I still carry invisible scars caused by that era.  No matter we survived.  I am talking about my sister, brother, and I .  There are two things that set me apart from people.  From about the third grade I was a voracious reader of books on almost any subject.  Had I concentrated, I would have been an authority by now; but I didn’t with no regrets.

        After the University of Alabama and the Air Force, I came to Denver.  Here I met Carl, who picked me up in Mary’s Bar.  Through our early life we traveled extensively in the mountain West.  Carl is from Helena, Montana, and is a Blackfoot Indian.  Our being from nearly opposite ends of the country made “going to see the folks” a broadening experience.  We went so many times that we finally had “must see” places on each route like the Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky and the polo games in Sheridan, Wyoming.  Now those happy travels are only memories.

        I was amongst the first members of the memoir writing class.  While it doesn’t offer criticism, it does offer feed back.  Also just trying to improve your writing helps no end.

        Carl is now in a nursing home, I don’t drive any more.  We totter on.