Hon. Henry C, Townes, attorney at law, and native of Carroll County, Tenn., was born June 10, 1840, son of Col. James and Julia B. (Clark) Townes, and is of Welsh-English lineage. His father was born in Virginia in 1788 and his mother in North Carolina, 1795. The Townes family came to Tennessee about 1828 and here James Townes died in 1858, and his wife in 1870. The Clark family located in the county about the same time. They were among the early settlers.
Our subject is the youngest of seven children and was educated at Huntingdon Male Academy and at Hamden Sidney College in Virginia, where he was attending school at the breaking out of the war. He enlisted in the Hamden City Company Twentieth Virginia, Confederate States Army, and was captured at the battle of Rich Mountain. He was subsequently exchanged and then joined the Third Virginia Cavalry and with this continued until the close of the war. He was in many important battles and in 1865 came home and began the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1867, and from that time until the present has been engaged in practicing his profession, with Albert G. Hawkins as his partner since 1874.
He is a Democrat and was married in December, 1868, to Alice Crockett of Carroll County. She was born in 1847. They have five children: Eva, Charlie M., Cora, Lida and Herbert C. Mr. Townes is a K. of H., and he and wife are members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Mr. Townes was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention at Chicago in 1884, and is now a member of the Senate of Tennessee, having been elected in November last to that position.
Transcribed by David Donahue
Source: History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Carroll, Henry and Benton Counties, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Original Observations, Reminiscences, Etc., Etc. Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1978.