You can find several Towsons buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C. The most famous resident would be General Nathan Towson, who, along with his wife, Sophia Bingham Towson and their three children, Caroline Towson Caldwell, Sophia B. Towson, and Edward Southard Towson, is buried on the cemetery's North Hill in Lot 67. But there are 12 additional Towsons known to be buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, with no apparent connection to General Towson and his family.
Located in the Van Ness section of the cemetery, in Lot 275 East, one can find the following individuals:
Located in the Van Ness section of the cemetery, in Lot 275 East, one can find the following individuals:
- John E. Carter, born 1813 and died 1886, and his wife, Emeline Janney, who died in 1883.
- Dorsey E.W. Towson, born in 1844 and died 1906, and his wife, Blanche K. Campbell, born 1860 and died 1932
- Helen Janney Towson, born 1890 and died 1968
- James H. Towson, died 1859 aged 42 years
- Sophia A. Janney, wife of James H. Towson, who died 1880 aged 59 years
- James H. Towson, son of J.H. and S.A. Towson, died 1858 aged 16 years
- Charles M. Towson and his wife, Serena Smith Towson
John E. Carter and Emeline Janney
We know from his headstone John Carter's birth and death dates, as well as the death date and maiden name of his wife, Emeline. Going backward in time, we start with the 1880 Census, as both Mr. and Mrs. Carter would have still been alive. In this Census, we find 67-year-old John and 57-year-old Emeline living in the 57th enumeration district of D.C. along with a 34-year-old Dorsey W.E. Carter, relationship nephew. John was listed as a retired dry goods merchant while Dorsey was listed as a dry goods merchant, perhaps suggesting he had inherited the business from his uncle.
Going back a decade further, 57-year-old John and 45-year-old Emeline are living in Georgetown along with 24-year-old Dorsey E. W. Carter, 16-year-old Charles M. Carter, 16-year-old John Grimes, 23-year-old Sallie Harris, and 24-year-old Joseph Traycy. While no relationships were listed, occupations for the white household members were as follows: John was a retired merchant while Emeline kept house, Dorsey appears to be a "retired dry goods merchant" although that does not jive with his age or employment status in the following census, Charles was a "clerk in store," John was going to school and Joseph worked in what appears to be a broom factory. Sallie Harris was the only black member of the household, and her occupation was domestic servant.
Another decade back and the Carters could not be found in D.C. or elsewhere. But in 1850, John E. Carter, 39-years-old, was the head of a household in Georgetown that also featured his 26-year-old wife, Emeline, a 6-year-old boy born in Maryland by the name of Edward D. Towson, and three apparently unrelated persons: 28-year-old John E. Lanthrum, clerk in store; Susanna Brown, hired in house [illegible]; and 14-year-old Lewis J. Mounty, "bound."
James Henry Towson and Sophia A. Janney
For this family unit, we start with the 1850 Census, as that is the last census that James Towson would have appeared in– but there are no results. Next, we turn to the 1880 Census, as Sophia Janney Towson may have been captured in that census but that also turns up empty, as does the 1870 Census.
The 1860 Census, however, turns up one potential household. A 37-year-old Sophia Towson living in Baltimore's 18th Ward is the head of a household that also contains 12-year-old Emma, 10-year-old John, and 6-year-old Charles. Both John and Emma have attended school within the year, but no other information is given for any of the household members. In an 1864 map of Baltimore, the most north easterly part of the 18th Ward was shown to be Vine Street.
This is significant as for several years a James H. Towson, shoemaker, could be found living on Vine Street. Between 1853 and 1860, the latter being the year after our James H. Towson is known to have died, the shoemaker, can be found living on Vine Street in Baltimore, with addresses at 139, 133, and 129 Vine Street. In the 1855-1856 Matchett's directory, a Sarah Towson (no occupation given) can also be found at 133 Vine. After 1860, no more Towsons would be listed on Vine until the 1868-1869 directory.*
Next, knowing their death dates, I turned to the Baltimore Sun for obituaries. On September 14th, the day after his death, a notice was published for the funeral of Jas. Henry Towson who had died after a lingering illness.
Source: ProQuest Historical Newspapers, The Baltimore Sun (1837-1994); Sept 14, 1859; pg. 2.
Just a year before his father, James Henry Towson, Jr. also passed away following an illness, though his was listed as having been consumption. His obituary revealed that he was 16 years and 18 days old and was the eldest son of his parents.
Source: ProQuest Historical Newspapers, The Baltimore Sun (1837-1994); Oct 5, 1858; pg. 2.
Lastly, I looked for Mrs. Towson, who died 21 years and 2 days after her husband. Her obituary revealed that she had moved to Argyle Avenue, located not too far from Vine Street but in a different city ward. No names were given for surviving family members, but her burial plans were confirmed as being at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown.
Source: ProQuest Historical Newspapers, The Baltimore Sun (1837-1994); Sept 16, 1880; pg. 2.
Interestingly, although no other results came up for my search of James H. Towson and Sophia A. Janney, on November 19, 1841, a James H. Towson married Sophia A. Webster in Baltimore [source]. That marriage date would line up with James Junior's birthdate of September 1842, if he was both the eldest son and the first child, but Sophia's surname is wrong. Perhaps she was married once before? Could "Webster" be the name for which the W in Dorsey E.W. Towson's name stands?
UPDATE 1/7/2023:
I just found a marriage record for John Carter and Emeline Webster (August 18, 1847 in DC). Looks like the sisters were named Webster! So where does Janney come from? Was that just their middle name?
Dorsey E.W. Towson and Blanche K. Campbell
I actually came across Dorsey Towson long before I came across this cluster of families. My first run-in with Dorsey was the discovery of a legal notice featured in the Washington Law Reporter, which came from the Clerk's Office of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, dated May 31, 1883. The notice certified that Dorsey E.W. Carter had filed a petition to have his name changed to Dorsey E.W. Towson, "alleging as his reasons for filing the same that Dorsey E.W. Towson is his real and proper name, which was changed during his minority, and he desires to resume the name of his ancestors."
Source: Google Books, The Washington Law Reporter, Volume 11 (1888).
Now, seeing this in the context of the Carters and Towsons buried together at Oak Hill, it seems like a vital piece in a puzzle that is slowly coming together. At this point, my working theory is that Dorsey E.W. Towson, listed as John and Emeline Carter's nephew in the 1880 Census, was born Edward Dorsey Towson (remember the 6-year-old in the Carters' household in 1850?) to James Henry Towson and Sophia A. Janney. If the Sophia Towson found in the 1860 Census was our Sophia, then she would have been 21-years-old when Dorsey was born, already the mother to a 2-year-old James Jr. Perhaps Sophia turned to her sister and her husband, who appeared to be childless, to have them raise her and James's second son.
Dorsey appears to have lived an interesting life. Under the name Dorsey E.W. Carter, Dorsey was a party to the case of Carter v. Burr that went to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1885. Later, in 1893, the name Dorsey E.W. Carter appeared alongside the sum of $46,241 on a list published in the Washington Evening Star titled "Pay Heavy Taxes – Men Who Have Fortunes in Washington Real Estate."
Charles McKendree Towson and Serena Helen Smith
How does Charles M. Towson fit into this family? The side of the headstone featuring his name includes the least amount of information, simply the names Charles M. Towson and Serena Smith Towson and the epitaph "beloved parents."
An obituary published in the Washington Post stated that he was 62-years-old at the time of his death in 1919, putting his birth year at about 1857, which is not far off from the birth year given for the 6-year-old Charles living in Sophia Towson's household in 1860 or the 16-year-old Charles M. living in the Carters' household in 1870 (both of which would put his birth year at about 1854).
The obituary goes on to provide additional details, stating that he was born in Towson, Maryland, "a village founded by his grandfather." That statement suggests that he was a descendent of Ezekiel Towson, who founded Towson's Tavern in 1768– Ezekiel was also the father of General Nathan Towson, who is buried at Oak Hill. For Charles to have been a grandson of Ezekiel, he would have had to have been the son of John Philip Towson (I have not yet confirmed that he is actually a son of Ezekiel) or Philemon Towson, as General Nathan Towson's children are known and all of Ezekiel's other sons died in the first decade of the century.
Source: Chronicling America, The Washington Post; Nov 25, 1919; pg. 7.
A longer obituary was published in the Evening Star, giving many of the same details and some new ones, including the names of his children.
Source: Chronicling America, The Evening Star; Nov 24, 1919; pg. 2.
So far, my working theory is this:
- Emeline and Sophia Janney were sisters.
- Emeline married John Carter, with whom she had no children, and Sophia married James Towson, with whom she had at least five children: James Henry, Edward Dorsey/Dorsey E.W., Emma, John, and Charles M. Towson.
- At the time their second child, Dorsey, was born, or when he was a young child, Sophia and James sent him to live with her sister.
- In 1870, when Charles was a young man, he joined his eldest surviving brother in living with his aunt and uncle in D.C, while their mother remained in Baltimore until her death in 1880.
- At that point, Sophia Towson was buried in Oak Hill, and the bodies of James Henry Towson Sr. and James Henry Towson Jr. were also moved to Oak Hill.
- Presumably, Emma and John Towson survived their mother, as otherwise their bodies would also likely have been moved to Oak Hill. That cannot be confirmed, however, as I cannot find any other records of John and Emma's existences.
UPDATE 1/5/2021:
I have just found several wills on Ancestry.com, all belonging to Dorsey E.W. Towson and dated in early January 1906. In them, he names children Irving, Blanche, Helen, Leontine, and Edith, as well as siblings John and Charles Towson and Kate Strong. A handwritten will stated that in the event of his wife's death, he wished that their minor children not be placed under the jurisdiction of his relations or his said wife's relations. With this information, I was able to find Emma K. Towson Strong's memorial on Find-A-Grave.
UPDATE 1/6/2021:
While doing my research yesterday, I came across a marriage announcement dated October 22, 1922 in the Washington, D.C. District Star for Edith Gillis Towson (daughter of Blanche and Dorsey) which mentioned a Mr. Norman E. Towson served as an usher. This was interesting, and I thought he might be a cousin, and maybe researching his family line would help figure out who James H. Towson Sr.'s parents were.
A little digging showed that Norman Eustace Towson was the son of Richard Matthew Towson and Nannie C. Campbell, the younger sister of Blanche K. Towson, who married on April 28th or 29th 1892 in Washington, D.C. The 1910 Census gives Richard's birthplace as Virginia and his parents' birthplaces as only the United S (tates. By 1920, Nannie and Norman were the only members of the household, although Nannie was still listed as married– by 1930, her status had changed to divorce. I cannot find Richard in the census, but city directories for the district give his residence as Alexandria, VA. He appears to have received a Doctor of Civil Law degree from George Washington University and worked for the U.S. Geological Survey as either a clerk or a topographer, possibly being stationed in Kentucky.
One Ancestry family tree gave Richard Matthew Towson's parents as Thomas Norman Towson (1822-1863) and Mary Frances Smith (1824-1895)... which would make absolute perfect sense. Thomas Norman Towson was the son of Thomas Towson and his wife Eleanor Norman; Thomas was the son of Captain John Towson and his wife Penelope Buck, of Baltimore County, while Eleanor's family were from Virginia. After apprenticing as a stone carver, Thomas Towson moved to the Stafford, Virginia area, became very wealthy, enslaved many people, and worked on many important buildings in the nation's capitol. In his old age, he threw his weight behind the Confederate cause and lost a son and several grandsons– Thomas Norman Towson, his youngest, was the son. And indeed, in the 1870 Census, a widowed Mary Frances Towson can be found living in Aquia, Stafford, Virginia, with six children– the youngest of whom was an eleven-year-old named Richard.
So, was Norman Eustace Towson a cousin of Edith Gillis Towson, Blanche and Dorsey's daughter? Certainly, on Blanche's side of the family (who were also Confederates). What about on Dorsey's? Well, I still don't know who James Towson's parents were.
But at least one source suggests that John and Penelope Towson had at least one more son apart from old Confederate Thomas who could've been James's father– William Towson and his wife, Katherine Reilly. This comes from Mrs. Elvira Elisabeth Crowe McFarland's lineage published in the Lineage Book - National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Volumes 70-71 published in 1924, but I have certainly found DAR lineages to be wrong in the past.* Hold that thought for a minute. She gives William Towson and Katherine Reilly as her great-grandparents, and her grandparents as Alfred Carter Towson and Elizabeth Blois Martin. There's that Carter name again! Could that be how Dorsey came to live with the Carters in D.C. and briefly carry the name Carter himself?
Okay, back to that teaser. *In fact, it was another person claiming descent from William Towson and Katherine Reilly. However, in researching that claim, I found that William Towson, son of John and Penelope, would have only been 13-years-old in 1790, the year William Towson and Katherine Reiley are said to have married. There was an older William Towson, William T. Towson, who would've been around 25-years-old and therefore of a marriageable age. Further, that William Towson moved from Baltimore to Tennessee, and in Hartsville, TN, we can find a large memorial stone for a Alfred Carter Towson. Also located in that cemetery? Jacob and Mahala Towson, the parents of Mrs. Josephine Eloise Towson Ellis, who claimed her grandparents were William and Katherine Towson in the Lineage Book - National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Volume 28 published in 1909. Mrs. Ellis's husband was also, you guessed it, a Confederate.
Further research will have to wait for another day. It is almost midnight, I have an early morning tomorrow, and there was an attempted coup today. I'm going to need the rest.
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So far this is all the information I have about this branch of the Towson family. If you have any additional information, please leave a comment.
*Roughly a decade after James's death, more Towsons would be found living on Vine Street: Edward T.B. Towson, mariner, and his brother, William H. Towson, who lived at 146 Vine or alternatively 152 Vine starting in 1868-1869 Matchett's directory. No relationship is currently known, but Edward and William's parents were known to be Edward C. Towson (1815-1846) and Catharine Anna Morgan (1814-1889).
