Robert Smith Todd


Robert Smith Todd was an American lawyer, soldier, banker, businessman and politician. He was the father of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

Early life

Todd was born on February 25, 1791, in Lexington, a year before Kentucky became a state. He was the third of six sons born to Gen. Levi Todd and Jane Todd. A year after his mother's death in 1800, his father remarried to Jane Holmes. Among the eleven children his father had between his two wives, was sister Jane Todd, who married congressman Daniel Breck.
A source of much family pride, his father fought in the American Revolutionary War under the command of Brigadier General George Rogers Clark. After the War, his father and his uncles, John and Robert Todd, helped found present-day Lexington and became leading landowners and prominent statesmen in the state of Kentucky prior to its admission into the United States in 1792. Through his brother, Dr. John Todd, he was the uncle of U.S. Representative and Union General John Blair Smith Todd.
When only fourteen years old, Todd began attending Transylvania College in Lexington, graduating four years later when he was eighteen.

Career

Todd studied law, first by apprenticing in the office of Thomas Bodley, the clerk of Fayette County, and second with prominent jurist George Bibb, the chief justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. He was admitted to the bar on September 28, 1811, however, Todd never practiced, instead, choosing to go into business.

Military service

Even before what became known as the War of 1812 started, Todd was active in a militia company that eventually merged into the Lexington light artillery of the 5th Kentucky Regiment. In the winter of 1811 to 1812, he asked to be recommended for a commission from Senator Henry Clay through Parker family members. In July 1812, when the 5th Kentucky Regiment left Lexington, it contained Robert, three of his brothers, and eight Todd cousins. Initially, Todd himself did not receive his officer commission, although his two older brothers did, so along with his younger brother Samuel, he enlisted as a private. Before he could leave Ohio though, he caught pneumonia and had to stay there to recover. After recovering, he went to the Front and fought in the Battle of Frenchtown in Michigan in January 1813 and later, the Battle of the Thames in the fall of 1813. Before the War ended, he was promoted to captain.

Business and politics

After the War ended, Todd began running a dry goods store with his partner, Bird Smith, and frequently traveled to New Orleans to buy French brandies, Dutch gin, and green coffee, which they sold in Lexington and Todd used to entertain many prominent friends with at his home. He later became a partner in a cotton factory in Fayette County and by 1835, he served as president of the Lexington branch of the Bank of Kentucky. In 1827, he was appointed a trustee to his alma mater, Transylvania University, alongside Henry Clay and Charles A. Wickliffe.
A close friend of John J. Crittenden, he was also involved in local politics as a justice of the peace and sheriff. Todd spent over twenty years working as the clerk of the Kentucky House of Representatives in Frankfort, Kentucky, before he was later elected as a Whig to the state assembly then to a single term in the Kentucky Senate in 1848.

Personal life

On November 13, 1812, Todd was married to his second cousin, Elizabeth "Eliza" Parker. Eliza was the daughter of Robert Porter Parker, a prominent landowner and merchant who had died in 1800. Eliza's mother, Elizabeth Rittenhouse Parker, a daughter of Col. Andrew Porter did not remarry prior to her death in 1850. Together, Eliza and Robert were the parents of seven children, six of whom survived to maturity, before her death in 1825, from complications during George's birth. Their children were:
Six months after the death of his first wife, he proposed to Elizabeth "Betsy" Humphreys, and they married on November 1, 1826. Betsy was the daughter of Dr. Alexander Humphreys and Mary Humphreys. Her maternal uncle was John Brown. Together, Betsy and Robert were the parents of nine additional children, eight of whom survived to maturity:
  • Robert Humphrey Todd, who died in infancy.
  • Margaret Todd, who married Charles Henry Kellogg.
  • Samuel Brown Todd, a Confederate soldier who was killed on the second day of the Battle of Shiloh.
  • David Humphreys Todd, a commandant of the Richmond prisons and served in the 21st Louisiana Infantry Regiment.
  • Martha Todd, who married C. B. White of Alabama.
  • Emilie Pariet Todd, who married Confederate Gen. Benjamin Hardin Helm, and son of the Kentucky Governor John L. Helm.
  • Alexander Humphreys Todd, a Confederate soldier killed at the Battle of Baton Rouge.
  • Elodie Breck Todd, who married Brig. General Nathaniel Henry Rhodes Dawson, later the third U.S. Commissioner of Education.
  • Catherine Bodley Todd, who married William Wallace Herr.
In 1832, Todd purchased a three-story, fourteen room, brick residence at 578 West Main Street in Lexington. The new Todd family home was built as an inn and tavern and known as "The Sign of the Green Tree". Today, the home has been preserved and is known as the Mary Todd Lincoln House.
Todd died suddenly from cholera on July 17, 1849, aged 58, in Liberty Heights, a neighborhood in Lexington.