Family of Obadiah G. Towson and Lydia T. Richards

Obadiah George Towson

Obadiah George Towson was born August 23, 1825 to James W. Towson and Sarah Root, and was likely named for his grandfather Obadiah Towson. He married married Lydia Tyler Richards (born Nov 17 1829), the daughter of Mundator Tracy Richards and Mary Tyler, of Preston, Connecticut.

The couple is said to have had five children. The first two, James and Mary, appear to be twins, born September 4 1857. Next comes Charles (born about 1864), who worked for the YMCA. The youngest surviving child of the couple was Emory (born about 1868), but another son, Ira Kimball (1872-1877), died in childhood.

Source: ProQuest Historical Newspapers, The Baltimore Sun (1837-1988); Oct 1, 1900; pg. 10.

Source: Chronicling America, The Baltimore County union (1837-1988); Oct 6, 1900; image 3.

Source: The New York Times Company, The New York Times, Dec 29, 1915.

James Obadiah Towson married Ida M. Woodmansee (1857-1949) of Preston, Connecticut, in 1882. According to Ancestry user jeannette_maloney, the couple had Mabel Emily (1883-1884); George Park (1885-1898); Ida Mae (1889-1956), who was married Joseph Hilton Smith on Sept. 7 1912 by her uncle Emory, at her home on Mantauk avenue in New London, CT; and Arthur Woodmansee Towson (1899-1993). James O. Towson testified in the case of the American Tobacco Company vs. Jessie May Strickling in 1898. He is said to have been a machinist since 1875 and said: "I consider a vertical shaft to be dangerous if it is not enclosed; and it has always been my custom, when it has been found absolutely necessary to place a vertical shaft, to advise the additional expense of enclosing it."

Mary Tyler Towson married William C. De Muth in 1889. The couple had at least three sons, Paul (b. 1892), Carl (b. 1896), and Ronald (b. 1897) before her death on July 5th 1908 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (source). More information will be added as it becomes available. According to a book at the John M. Okey & Son Funeral Home in Salem, Mary is buried in the East Hill Cemetery in Salem City, Virginia, alongside a Hellen K. DeMuth (infant, 1891). Hellen may be Mary and William's first child after they were married.

Charles R. Towson, from History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Department of the Young

Men's Christian Association of Philadelphia by William Bender Wilson, published 1911.

Charles Richards Towson married Rosa Haseltine Stanard (1872-aft 1949) on 12 June 1893. He died August 21, 1949 at the age of 86. The couple had the following children:

1. Lydia L. (Jan 1895-Dec 1910) married Pollock
2. Rosa Stanard (1897-1972)
3. Charles Richards, Jr. (1899-1971)
4. Emory Erdman (1901-1977), who married Kathryn Lucille Donelson on October 17, 1930;  later he married Katherine Kirkpatrick
5. Champe Thorton (1903-1981), married Joseph David Lenox and had children Nancy (b. 1927-2016), Beverly (b. 1930), and Patricia (b. 1932)
6. James Wilbur (1905-????)
7. Eleanor Tyler (1908-????), who married Arthur Burlingham Barney in 1935.

Starting in 1907 he was the general secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association's Industrial Department. Before that, from 1898 to the end of 1906 he was the General Secretary of the YMCA's Pennsylvania Railroad Department. He was featured in Making Men, Making Class: The YMCA and Workingmen, 1877-1920 by Thomas Winter. He died August 21st, 1949, as reported in the Yonkers NY Herald Statesman.

Rev. Emory Shailer Towson married Gertrude Hugg (1871-1956). In 1920 he was a secretary for the YMCA. The couple had sons Dr. Charles Emory (b. 1892) and Ira Gladstone (b. 1894), and daughter Charlotte Gertrude (b. 1903), who married Captain Arthur Vanderpool Winton in 1927.

Ira Kimball Towson was born in 1872 and died in 1877. He is buried with his father in Greenmount Cemetery.