Prescott Townsend, (June 24, 1894 - May 23, 1973), of Roxbury, Massachusetts was considered a Boston Bohemianism blue blood; the son of Kate Wendell Sherman and Edward Britton Townsend; his mother was a descendant of both Myles Standish and the great-granddaughter of the American founding father Roger Sherman. 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 State legislature, where he urged the lawmakers "to legalize love."