William & Martha Townsend

The boy who left with his rooster

One of the oldest stories told about William begins with a quarrel over milking a cow. He was about twelve and protested that it was not his turn. After being cuffed and told to do it anyway, he finished the chore, picked up his pet rooster, and walked away.

As the family tells it, he reached the Saunders farm near Rushville, New York, and asked to sleep in the barn. He stayed to work for John and Nancy Saunders. That farm would become a lasting connection: years later, he returned to marry their daughter Martha.

William had been born in nearby Penn Yan on December 3, 1827, to John Townsend and Lydia Abigail Bristol. Martha was born in Rushville on September 7, 1844. Their life together would take them far from those New York beginnings.

West to California

William went west to mine for gold. The family remembered him crossing the Isthmus of Panama by mule team before continuing by sea. A passage receipt bearing his name, dated February 18, 1852, survives from the voyage between Panama and San Francisco aboard the Dorothea and Ernestine.

His mining years took him to the country around Nevada City and Brush Creek. In 1864, he returned to New York and married Martha. Together they made the journey back to California, crossing Panama by railroad this time. Among the belongings remembered in the family was a mantel clock marked “W.A.T.”

Four children, two homes

Inez Isabell was born at Brush Creek on January 8, 1867, and Abbott Elmore followed on June 17, 1868. Around 1874, the family moved to Mayfield in Santa Clara County, where William worked as a carpenter on the Stanford ranch.

Carrie was born in Mayfield on October 14, 1874. Their youngest, Francis Gilbert—Frank—arrived on March 18, 1879. Before that year was over, the family would move again.

A new home in Washington Territory

In the autumn of 1879, William went ahead to Washington Territory. Martha and the children followed, traveling by coastal boat, up the Columbia River to Kalama, and onward by train. Abbott remembered arriving on November 14 in the small settlement that became Centralia.

Many years later, he could still picture their first Thanksgiving there. The house was small, and their table was made from planks supported by a barrel and boxes. They had a stove brought from Portland and a meal of spareribs, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Eleven-year-old Abbott had been sent to Chehalis for the ribs, where a sackful cost twenty-five cents.

A mother waiting for a letter

By September 1908, the children were grown, but Martha still wanted to know whether her boys were eating properly and keeping well. In a letter to her sons, she worried about Frank’s health at the logging camp. She hoped the food would put some flesh on his bones and urged him to come home if he did not improve.

Between those worries came the ordinary news of home: the weather, family headaches, neighbors, and a package for Abbott. She closed by asking both sons to write once in a while and let her know how they were fed and whether they were well.

The people remembered

William died in 1903. His obituary remembered his generosity and his enjoyment of telling stories about the mining days. Martha lived until 1923.

Her grandson Bud—Francis Abbott Townsend—carried one small memory of her into later life. He remembered her across the street in a long black dress, pointing him toward the corner so he would cross there. Among all the journeys and dates, that glimpse remains: a grandmother watching over a child.