TOWNSEND, Thomas S., compiler, born in New York city, 27 August, 1829. His father, John R., was a well-known member of the New York bar. The son received a classical education, and at an early age entered the mercantile firm of Lawrence, Trimble and Co., New York city. In 1860 he determined to form a chronological "history of every important occurrence in connection with the impending civil war by preserving from the newspapers every statement of value relating to any circumstance that directly or indirectly led to secession, to national complications growing out of the struggle, to the cause, conduct, and results of the rebellion, to personal records of soldiers from the lowest to the highest rank, and to the military and civil history of the Union and the Confederacy. This journalistic record comprises about 120 volumes containing 60.000 pages. William Cullen Bryant said of it: "The age has given birth to few literary undertakings that will bear comparison with this work. The forty academicians who compiled the dictionary of the French language had a far less laborious task." This collection is now in Columbia college library, New York city. He has delivered numerous lectures and addresses on the subject of the war, including an oration oil Memorial day, 1885, in Brooklyn, New York, on "The Empire State in the Rebellion."