John D. Townsend scrapbooks, 1869-1893
2 volumes
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)