TOWSON

unincorporated community, Baltimore county, northern Maryland, U.S. It was named for Ezekiel Towson, who settled the area about 1750, and was made county seat in 1854. It evolved into a northern residential-industrial suburb of Baltimore. It is the seat of Goucher College (1885) and Towson University (1866; originally Maryland State Normal School), which moved from Baltimore in 1915 and is now part of the University of Maryland system. The Hampton National Historic Site, which preserves a Georgian mansion (178390), is just to the north. Pop. (1990) 49,445.