His father was noted in "Souvenir History of Pella, Iowa (1847–1922)," as a land agent who greeted people arriving by covered wagon.

[11] Towne wrote the 1895 play Other People's Money, which was performed at Hoyt's Theatre in New York City the same year.

[12][13] He also wrote A Little Drunkardess, A Masked Battery, and Literary Duet By Wits Outwitted,[2] was staged in Cleveland, Ohio in 1893 and was accompanied by A Glimpse of Paradise by Frank S.

[17] He was found guilty of conspiring to wreck the Lumbermen's Building and Loan Association in October 1898, and was fined US $1,500 and sentenced to serve an indeterminate sentence time in Joliet Prison (now Joliet Correctional Center).

[2] Their son Fenimore Cooper Towne was born c. 1893 and died at the family home in 1918 of sepsis poisoning[21] at the age of 25.