Robert Smith Todd
Robert Smith Todd (February 25, 1791 – July 17, 1849) was an American lawyer, soldier, banker, businessman and politician. He was the father of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.
Robert Smith Todd
February 25, 1791
Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.
July 17, 1849 (aged 58)
Liberty Heights, Kentucky
John Todd (uncle)
Robert Todd (uncle)
16, including Mary
Levi Todd
Jane Briggs Todd
1811 - 1815
Early life[edit]
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 (1756–1807) and Jane (née Briggs) Todd (1761–1800).[1] 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.[2]
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.[3]
When only fourteen years old, Todd began attending Transylvania College in Lexington, graduating four years later when he was eighteen.[1]
On November 13, 1812, Todd was married to his second cousin, Elizabeth "Eliza" Parker (1794–1825). Eliza was the daughter of Robert Porter Parker, a prominent landowner and merchant who had died in 1800. Eliza's mother, Elizabeth Rittenhouse (née Porter) Parker,[7] a daughter of Col. Andrew Porter did not remarry prior to her death in 1850.[8][b] 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:[5]
Six months after the death of his first wife, he proposed to Elizabeth "Betsy" Humphreys, and they married on November 1, 1826.[15] Betsy was the daughter of Dr. Alexander Humphreys and Mary (née Brown) Humphreys. Her maternal uncle was John Brown.[c] Together, Betsy and Robert were the parents of nine additional children, eight of whom survived to maturity:[5]
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 c. 1803 – c. 1806 as an inn and tavern and known as "The Sign of the Green Tree".[5] Today, the home has been preserved and is known as the Mary Todd Lincoln House.[5]
Todd died suddenly from cholera on July 17, 1849, aged 58, in Liberty Heights, a neighborhood in Lexington.[18]