Background
He was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, the son of Kate Wendell and Edward Britton Townsend. His mother was both a descendant of Myles Standish and the great-granddaughter of the American founding father Roger Sherman.
He was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, the son of Kate Wendell and Edward Britton Townsend. His mother was both a descendant of Myles Standish and the great-granddaughter of the American founding father Roger Sherman.
He graduated from Harvard University in 1918.
Prescott was arrested on January 29, 1943 for participating in an "unnatural and lascivious act," and was sentenced to eighteen months in the Massachusetts House of Corrections on Deer Island. Number one in his powerful, wealthy and socially prominent family applied any pressure to shorten his jail time. Townsend is believed to have been the first individual to organize a public conversation about homosexuality in the United States, and the first acknowledged homosexual to officially address the Massachusetts legislature, where he urged the lawmakers "to legalize love."
He founded the Boston Demophile Society, a Mattachine-like organization.
In talks in Boston and Provincetown he promoted his "Snowflake Theory" of human personality and sexuality, stating that the human mind is like a snowflake in that no two are alike, and each has six opposing sides: I/You, He/She, Hit/Submit.
Townsend had, for years, been suffering from failing health brought on by Parkinson"s Disease, and on May 23, 1973 his body was found in the Beacon Hill apartment of John Murray who had been caring for him during the final years of his life.
The Mid-Town Journal headline of January 29, 1943 reported, "Beacon Hill "Twilight" Manitoba Member of Queer Love Cult Seduced Young Manitoba" and one month later he was officially stricken from both the New York and Boston Social Registers.