George Alfred Townsend

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

George Alfred Townsend, ca. 1899

George Alfred Townsend (January 30, 1841 - April 15, 1914), was a noted war correspondent during the American Civil War, and a later novelist. Townsend wrote under the pen name "Gath", which was derived by adding an "H" to his initials, and inspired by the biblical passage II Samuel 1:20, "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askalon."

Townsend was born in Georgetown, Delaware. He originally wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and in 1861 he moved to the New York Herald. He is considered to have been the youngest war correspondent of the war.

Immediately following the war, he married Elizabeth Evans Rhodes of Philadelphia, and in 1884 began building a baronial estate in the Catoctin Mountains called Gathland (or "Gapland"), near Burkittsville, Maryland. Gathland was built on the site of the Battle of Crampton's Gap, and is in close proximity to the battlefields of South Mountain and Antietam. The estate was comprised of several buildings, including Gapland Hall, Gapland Lodge, the Den and Library Building, and a mausoleum (notable for its inscription of "Good Night Gath"). In 1896, Townsend built the War Correspondents' Memorial Arch, the first such monument to war journalists.

The Gathland estate is now Gathland State Park. Several buildings still stand, including Gapland Hall (which is the park headquarters) and the mausoleum.

Townsend left Gathland in 1911, and died three years later in New York City. He was buried in Philadelphia.