A. A. Townsend

Absalom Austin Townsend (December 7, 1810 – April 28, 1888) was an American miner and prospector. He was a pioneer of the Wisconsin lead-mining region and the California gold rush.

Early years Townsend, third son of Samuel and Sarah (Longwell) Townsend, was born in Sussex County, New Jersey in 1810. When he was two years old, his father moved to Steuben County, New York, where he resided till 1826. His father, now a widower, having purchased some military land in Western Illinois, started on October 15, 1826, with his eldest son, and Absalom, and arrived at Fort Clark (now Peoria, Illinois), on January 1, 1827. In mid-February 1827, they arrived at the lead mines in the vicinity of Gratiot's Grove, near present-day Shullsburg, Wisconsin, and engaged in the business of mining. They were soon interrupted by the Black Hawk War in 1832. The elder brother volunteered in William S. Hamilton's company, while Townsend and his father forted at Gratiot's Grove, with Townsend serving under Gen. Zachary Taylor ("Old Rough & Ready"). He served during the whole of the Black Hawk War (1832) as a volunteer, under Col. Henry Dodge, and participated in the Battle of Bad Axe on August 2, 1832. After the war was over, Townsend returned to mining. Absalom Townsend during California Gold Rush (circa 1850-51) - photographer unknown.

Biography In 1836, he married, and settled on a farm near Shullsburg, Wisconsin. With news of the California Gold Rush, Townsend resolved to try his hand at mining in that region. He fitted out a train of twelve wagons, drawn by oxen, with a company of men, in the spring of 1849, and taking the land route, started on April 16, and arrived in California on September 9. arriving September 8 (or 10), 1850. Townsend was astonished to find a town at Rough and Ready, containing some 400-500 inhabitants, instead of just his two cabins. He had to "buy into a claim" to get a place to work himself. While in Nevada County, he pursued the business of mining and stock keeping. He returned to Shullsburg in the spring of 1851.

In 1864, Townsend led a large wagon train of individuals from Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa to the gold areas of Montana. Known as the "Townsend Wagon Train", it consisted of 150 wagons and over 400 people. They used the same Oregon Trail he had traveled in his 1849 and 1850 trips to California but in Wyoming they took an offshoot of the trail on to the Bozeman Trail which had been mapped by John Bozeman in 1863. The Townsend Wagon Train was only the 3rd such train on the Bozeman Trail and was attacked by Native Americans on July 7, 1864 near the Powder River in Wyoming. Several deaths occurred on both sides of the battle. The Wagon Train eventually reached its destination of Virginia City, Montana, on August 25, 1864, according to the trail diary of Benjamin W. Ryan, a member of the wagon train.

Personal life With his first wife, Mary Ann Ross, there were four children, including Addison and Virginia. She died in 1842 at the age of 29 and is buried in Shullsburg. He married his second wife, Julia Almira Wells (1827–1877), in 1844; they had two sons and one daughter, Edwin, Walter, and Ellen.