“Cape Townsend” honors Charles Townshend instead of Dr. David Townsend
This 1825 map was produced using notes from a survey expedition led by Major Stephen Long:
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and the Michigan State University Libraries Digital Collections: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Country_Embracing_the_Route_of_the_Expedition_of_1823_Commanded_by_Major_S.H._Long.jpg, https://d.lib.msu.edu/maps/49
The map was part of the first volume of a book which reported their findings: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Narrative_of_an_Expedition_to_the_Source/3qAk6juyqfoC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT5
The second volume states “This document has been compiled principally from elements obtained during the progress of the Expedition”, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Narrative_of_an_expedition_to_the_source/2doGAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA250, with the title page of the book crediting Stephen Long and three of the men who served under him.
Describing this map in 1905, Julia A. Lapham in “A Glimpse at Maps of the Northwest Territory.” states:
The Mississippi has only one p on Long’s earlier map but has the full number on the later one—on which Manitowakie and Wisconsan rivers are represented. Copper mines are noted on Lake Superior, and Door county is “Cape Townsend,” named for Dr. David Townsend, a surgeon in the United States army.
The article was published in the May and June, 1905 American Antiquarian: https://books.google.com/books?id=WkTzAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA124
The reference to the earlier map is about this one, from 1791:
Courtesy of Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript library, https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2000028
While the later map was a result of Stephen Long’s expedition, the earlier map was published with John Long’s Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Voyages_and_Travels_of_an_Indian_Interpr/4hgvZk7gLfsC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PR14
John Long’s travels included camping along the bay of Green Bay: https://books.google.com/books?id=fM3HfKEIcl4C&pg=PA186
Stephen Long was commissioned to undertake a survey the upper Mississippi valley and northern Minnesota: https://www.nps.gov/fosm/learn/historyculture/long.htm
The report from Stephen Long’s expedition describes how to get to the Great Lakes from the Mississippi by heading up the Wisconsan River, portaging across it to the Fox River, and heading downstream to Greenbay, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Narrative_of_an_Expedition_to_the_Source/naJCAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA220, and it also relates a story from someone else about skeletons that were “eight feet from head to foot”: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Narrative_of_an_Expedition_to_the_Source/naJCAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA252
Just as Lapham mistook Stephen Long and John Long as the same individual, she was also mistaken in identifying Dr. David Townsend as the peninsula’s namesake. Craig Charles in Exploring Door County states that Cape Townsend was intended to honor Charles Townsend: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Exploring_Door_County/ixQrAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22The+name+honors+Charles+Townsend+,+an+English+politician+who+financed%22&dq=%22The+name+honors+Charles+Townsend+,+an+English+politician+who+financed%22
Charles Townshend lived from 1725 to 1767, and his last name is normally spelled with an “h”. The University of Michigan has an archive of papers related to him, including some about the Great Lakes: https://findingaids.lib.umich.edu/catalog/umich-wcl-M-1773tow
Townshend sent out the explorer Jonathan Carver, who drew this map around the year 1769:
Courtesy of Boston Public Library’s Leventhal Map & Education Center, https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:hx11z2987
The handwriting is faded and difficult to read. One of the print versions of this map listed at https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Jonathan+Carver misspells “Townsend”, but this colorized version with correct spelling was printed in 1781:
Courtesy of Boston Public Library’s Leventhal Map & Education Center, https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:hx11z2987
David Townsend does not loom as large in history as Charles Townshend. Townshend was responsible for the hated Townshend Acts, which spurred on the Revolution. Maybe Lapham expected early Americans would prefer to honor a patriot like David Townsend instead. David Townsend served as a doctor at the Battle of Bunker Hill. This battle was fought on a peninsula, which today is the location of the present-day Charlestown neighborhood of Boston. This blog post includes several maps of the battle: https://dwkcommentaries.com/2012/07/30/the-american-revolutionary-wars-battle-of-bunker-hill-june-17-1775
In 1873, Richard Frothingham wrote about how the war impacted Boston, and he named David Townsend as one of the doctors: https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_the_Siege_of_Boston/zzkSAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA193
Some of the dead were buried on the field of battle. One deposit appears to have been a trench near the line of the almshouse estate, running parallel with Elm-street. Here a large number of American buttons have been found attached to bones. Americans were buried in other places in Charlestown, which are known from similar circumstances. The wounded were carried to the western side of Bunker Hill, and then to Cambridge. Doctors Thomas Kittredge, William Eustis, — afterwards governor, — Walter Hastings, Thomas Welsh, Isaac Foster, Lieut.-col. Bricket, David Townsend, and John Hart, were in attendance. The house of Governor Oliver, in Cambridge, known as the Gerry estate, was occupied as a hospital. Many of the soldiers who died of their wounds were buried in a field in front of this house. Rev. Samuel Cook’s house, at West Cambridge, was also used for a hospital. The prisoners were carried to Boston jail.
Following the revolution, Dr. David Townsend continued to serve as a doctor in the Boston area, as described by John W. Trask in 1940: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_United_States_Marine_Hospital_Port_o/jut9AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA62
DAVID TOWNSEND (1753-1829)
Physician in Charge of the Marine Hospital, July 18, 1809, to May 1, 1829
David Townsend was born in Boston, June 7, 1753, graduated from Harvard college in 1770, and received an honorary M. D. degree from Harvard in 1813. He studied medicine under Doctor Joseph Warren whom he accompanied at the battle of Bunker Hill as surgeon of Warren’s regiment. He was commissioned surgeon to the sixth regiment of infantry commanded by Col. Asa Whitcomb, January 1, 1776; was senior surgeon to the General Hospital of the Northern Department in March 1777; and was with the Army under Washington during the winter at Valley Forge. He was an active member of the Massachusetts Medical Society from 1785 to 1824 and a charter member of the Society of the Cincinnati, being secretary of the Massachusetts Chapter from 1817 to 1821, vice president from 1821 to 1825, and president from 1825 to 1829. He was a Mason and was buried according to their rites in Revere Beach at low tide (74).
Doctor Townsend, as did Doctor Waterhouse before him, extended to the students of the Harvard Medical College the privilege of using the clinical facilities at the Marine Hospital for the observation and study of cases.
There is in the Boston Medical Library a patients’ account book kept by David Townsend during the early of his practice. The charge for house visits was 4 shillings. The charges for medicine varied and were in addition to the visit. There are entries for “Cath., 2 shillings”; “Emet. 2 shillings;” “Extracting tooth, 3 shillings”; “mist. diaphoret., 1 shilling”; “Dressing sprained thumb. 2 shillings.”
One account, dated 1786, is headed, “His Excellency Governor Hancock.” Among the items in the Governor’s account is: “Decem 7th. to delivery of child bed attendance on his servant Eunice, 48 shillings.” Another entry is for prescribing for Mrs. Hancock. There is an entry in another account reading, “To arising in the night and emet. 12 shillings.” In Mr. Samuel Appleton’s account appears the item, “To inoculating and attending three of his family during the smallpox in July @ 28/- 4 pounds 4 shillings.”
The account of Mr. Nathaniel Prime is kept in pounds, shillings, and pence and paid in dollars and cents in 1790 and 1791, at the rate of 5 dollars equivalent to 1 pound, 10 shillings.
Samuel F. Batchelder summarized Townsend’s career in 1920: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Harvard_Alumni_Bulletin/mS4eAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA508
Of his [Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr’s] fellow-members in the “Anatomical Society” we may subjoin that both Dr. Townsend and Dr. Eustis immediately volunteered as regimental surgeons, but were obviously too good for the medical riffraff that surrounded them; within a year or two they were both promoted to the Hospital Department, where they rendered distinguished services until the very end of the conflict. On the declaration of peace Eustis gave up medicine and entered the field of politics, where he won new laurels as Governor of Massachusetts, member of Congress, etc. Townsend practised with reputation in Boston, and at the time of his death, in 1829, was president of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati. His gravestone, reciting his Revolutionary record in detail, is a prominent object in the Granary Burying Ground.
Dr. David Townsend, ‘70 1753—1829
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