Hosea Townsend (June 16, 1840 – March 4, 1909) was an American attorney and politician who served two terms as a U.S. Representative from Colorado from 1889 to 1893.

[1] Appointed by Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, he was a United States judge for the southern district of the Indian Territory from 1897 to 1907.

Born on a farm in Greenwich, Ohio, his parents were Hiram and Eliza Townsend.

[4] Townsend attended the common schools and Western Reserve College, Cleveland, Ohio, in 1860.

In one case, a Seventh Day Adventist refused to perform jury duty on a Sunday, and Townsend found him in contempt of court.

Yet he extended leniency to a bootlegger whose family needed him at home to keep food on the table.He married Anna Augusta Barnes on November 28, 1865[4] and they had two children, John Barnes Townsend and Anna Bell Townsend.

[3][4] After they moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma of the Indian Territory, Anna decided that the area needed a library and obtained funding from Andrew Carnegie about 1903.