New York City lawyer John Drake Townsend kept these two scrapbooks between 1869 and 1893. Numbered seven and eight and totaling approximately 340 pages, they contain pasted-in newspaper clippings chronicling his court cases or cases that interested him. The bulk of volume seven pertains to the removal of N.Y.C. police commissioners by Mayor Edward Cooper in 1879. Much of volume eight regards the 1879 murder of socialite Jane Lawrence DeForest Hull, who was accidentally suffocated while being robbed by her former lover Chastine Cox, an African American man.
Volume 7, 1869-1879
- Miscellaneous clippings, 1869-1877 (pp. 1-12)
- Clippings related to the indictment of New York City Aldermen, for usurping authority they did not legally possess, 1878 (pp. 13-33)
- Clippings related to the removal of police commissioners by New York City Mayor Edward Cooper, 1879 (pp. 34-173)
Volume 8, 1869, 1869-1893
- Affixed to pastedown: Manuscript letter from 11 persons to John D. Townsend, June 16, 1879: request to represent them in the case of the death of Jane Lawrence DeForest Hull
- Clippings pertinent to the murder of Jane Lawrence DeForest Hull, 1879 (pp. 1-118)
- Carte-de-visite portrait of Dr. Alonzo F. Hull (between pp. 18 and 19)
- Clippings pertinent to the murder of Louis W. Guttermuth, 1882 (pp. 120-129)
- Cabinet card portrait of Louis W. Guttermuth (between pp. 120 and 121)
- Clippings related to a libel suit against the publishers of Truth, 1882 (pp. 131-144)
- Clippings related to the Joseph Hart-George Alfred Townsend libel case, 1884 (pp. 146-149)
- Clippings pertinent to the bigamous marriage of Nathaniel Hawes to Anna E. Wetmore, 1884 (pp. 153-156)
- Clippings related to John D. Townsend's defense of William H. Mumler, 1869 (pp. 160-163)
- Miscellaneous clippings, 1884-1893 (pp. 164-165)
John Drake Townsend was born in 1835, to parents John R. and Caroline Drake Townsend in New York City. He spent part of his youth at sea, at one time serving as second mate on the sailing ship Flying Cloud.
He married Eliza Delano Swan of Boston on March 15, 1854, and the couple had four daughters, Caroline, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Madeline. John D. Townsend studied law under Sprague and Fillmore, then at the Dane Law School at Harvard University. According to Syracuse University's finding aid for "John D. Townsend Manuscript":
"He was admitted to the New York State Bar in May 1859. The lawyer served in the Queens County Legislature before being asked by Governor Morgan to serve on a committee responsible for organizing a war regiment from Townsend's Senatorial district. He went on to act as a delegate to the Democratic State Convention on numerous occasions. Townsend earned the reputation of being 'The Fighting Lawyer,' and was eventually chosen to serve as the sole attorney for William 'Boss' Tweed. He was later selected by the Assembly Committee to oversee the examination of the District Attorney's office, the Police Department, and various other branches of the city government."
John D. Townshend died on December 25, 1896. Posthumously, his articles against New York City governmental corruption were collected and published as New York in Bondage (1901).
