The Family of William Todd
of
Introduction
Sometime prior to 1723/1724, William Todd and John Todd appear to have settled in NJ within travel distance of the Abington Presbyterian Church in northern
· by 1750, William had migrated to
· by 1755, Robert had gone to Chester Co and by 1760 to
· by 1760, Andrew had gone to
· by 1767, John had gone to Mecklenburg Co NJ
We don’t know what happened to James, but he may have stayed behind since we see two sons continued to live in the area: David Todd 1731-1809 who lived in Hunterdon Co. and John Todd 1729-1802 who lived in Hunterdon but moved to
This essay focuses on the life and family of William Todd.
William Todd had children baptized at the Abington Presbyterian Church between 1723 and 1728 and then again 1736 to 1738. John Todd married there in 1724 and had children baptized there in 1725 and 1726/7 and then in 1736. During this gap in the 1730s, a William and a John Todd have children baptized at First Presbyterian Church in
The Todds arrived in
Almost all of the Todd references in the colonial records of the
This essay describes what is known about William Todd and his family and the mysteries that have yet to be unraveled.
There is a William Todd and an Alice Todd (relationship to each other not stated) who appear at an early date on a membership list of the Abington Presbyterian Church in the portion of Philadelphia County PA that later became Montgomery County. Family historians that have claimed that this slate was from 1711 seem to be in error because the church was not founded until 1714. William and Alice may be husband and wife and William is almost certainly the father of all those children baptized in the church between 1723 and 1738 that are identified as children of William Todd.
As mentioned above, William Todd has children baptized in
The children are:
Low Todd, baptized
Elizabeth Todd, baptized,
James Todd, baptized
..ry (presumed Mary), baptized
Sarah, baptized
Hannah, baptized
Lydia Todd, baptized
William Todd, baptized
Samuel Todd, born ca 1739/40, not listed on church register, but known to be a son of William.
John Todd born ca 1746 (not proven but highly likely)
The two children not on the baptismal registers warrant comment. Samuel Todd is not listed on the Abington church register, but a court record in 1801 in Botetourt Co, VA indicate that William had a son Samuel who remembered events in 1754 or 1756 which implies he was at least a teeenager by 1754. Also, there is a John Todd born prior to 1751 and probably in the 1740s who in 1772 sells land that William Todd bought in
JOHN TODD
A contemporary to William was the John Todd who married Judith Breden in
James Todd, 2 May 1725 at Abington
Elizabeth Todd,
Mary Todd,
Alexander Todd,
(The entry for Alexander Todd
If we are right in assuming that all four birth entries refer to the same John, then he must have remarried because his wife in 1729 was Jane.
No records of land ownership have been found for William or John, but record indexes for
The only other record we have for William is a letter left in the Philadelphia Post Office in 1740 for William Todd of Whitemarsh which is a township in northern
However, there are records at the Janeway Store in Bound Brook, Somerset Co, NJ of a William and John Todd who appear frequently together on account ledgers for goods bought on credit between 1735 and 1744. Also on these ledgers are a Robert Todd, Andrew Todd and James Todd. All but John are identifed as brothers to each other though John is probably a brother also. All five of these Todds appear to have left the area and gone elsewhere before the Revolutionary era. The correspondence of ages and names and the fact that they didn’t stay in New Jersey seems too great to be a coincidence so that it seems likely that the four Todds: Wm, John, Robert and Andrew of the PA records are the same Todds as: Wm, John, Robert, Andrew and James of the Somerset County records.
This author believes that the Todds of the Janeway Store records are the Todds of the Abington church records. William’s cessation of baptizing his children at Abington in 1738 may be due to switching to another church in
Further, we find that William, John and Robert appears in
Descendants of one branch of this family (probably James) appear to have stayed behind after their parents died or moved away. David Todd 1731-1809 of Hunterdon Co., and his brother John Todd 1729-1802 of
DNA analysis shows William Todd who went to Augusta Co., VA, Robert Todd who went to Chester, then Philadelphia Co, Andrew Todd who went to Chester Co, then Bedford Co, PA, then Louisa Co, VA and John Todd who went to Mecklenburg Co, NC to have all shared an identical or very similar genetic pattern. Also, David Todd 1731-1809 and John Todd 1729-1802 in
In 1750, William Todd purchased 400 acres of land in the hilly country of
In 1756, James Todd, assumed here to be James b 1726, the son of William, bought 185 acres of land from James Gilmore on Buffalo Creek a few miles south of his father.
In 1758, William was a witness on the purchase of
By 1761, Low and William moved to land in different parts of
It is not clear why William Todd and Low Todd made the move eastward to
We have no record of what became of William Todd, Sr. There is no will, no estate settlement, no court records in either Augusta or Bedford that give a clue. It may be that William left the area with a married daughter and died in another county (or other state) sometime after 1760.
All we know is that in October of 1770, 10 years after the purchase of the Turnip Creek land, William Todd “of Augusta County” (with John Todd as witness) sold 200 acres of this land and in 1772, John Todd and Mary Todd his wife sold the other half.
Since the land had been divided without deed, this suggests that William had died or left the area prior to 1770, and that the William who was selling the land was William Todd, Jr. b 1738. Since the land was divided equally between William and John, this suggests that they were brothers. The deed identifies William as William Todd of Botetourt, indicating he had moved back to the mountains.
In 1778, there is a William Todd and a John Todd on the tax lists of
However, there is considerable evidence (discussed elsewhere) that this John Todd is the John Todd (ca1746-1829) who shows up in Kentucky from Virginia by 1781 and was associated with the McMurtrys (John McMurtry’s wife was a granddaughter of William Todd Sr.) This John Todd moved to Lincoln Co., Tennessee 1814/1817and died there in 1829. His birth date of 1746 reportedly comes from a tombstone.
During this era, other moves of related families – McMurtrys, Huttons, McKees, Lowrys - were taking place. In 1753, Lydia Todd married James McKee. In 1759, John McMurtry (who later married Mary Todd Hutton) and his teenage brother Samuel bought land on Whistle Creek in 1759. Samuel McMurtry married Jane Martin in 1762 and moved to Abbeville South
The following chart shows the descendants of William Todd:
William Todd
B ca 1690-1700
=>Philadelphia Co prior to 1723
=>Augusta Co 1750 =>Bedford Co 1760
md Alice LNU (possibly Lowe)
_________________________|___________________________________________
Low
b1723
PA
d1792
TN
Eliz.
John
b 1746?
d 1829
Lincoln Co TN Samuel b 1739 ?
d 1812
md abt 1761
Jean Lowery Wm
1738
Hannah
1731
possibly md
ca 1755
James McMurtry
1734
Sarah b 1729/30 d 1795 TN md
John Houston
Mary
1728
md
Sam’l
Hutton
d KY
James b1726 m1743? d 1789 Susanna Lydia b 1736
d 1811 KY
md James McKee
1726
1778
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
|
|
|
|
|
Eliz
1724/5
I have not included the Nancy Todd who reportedly married James McMurtry of Bedford County, VA ca 1750, nor the Isabella Todd who reportedly married Patrick Young in the 1740s?, nor the Esther Todd who reportedly married John Taylor. I have also not included Sarah Todd b ca 1718 who reportedly married Alexander McMurtry. Further research is needed to determine if these women were Todds and if they were related to the
Low Todd, oldest son of William Todd, was baptized in Abington Presbyterian Church in 1723. He came with his father to
Later in 1787, as he was preparing to move to
In November 1792, he left a will in
Low’s eldest children’s birth dates are inferred to be in the early 1750s based on birth years of his grandchildren and land purchases by his son Low, Jr, though some of the children may have been born in the 1770s and hence presumably by a second wife.
Low Todd, Jr.
By survey of 1775, he obtained 122 acres on the north side of the
Low later appeared from 1814-1823 in Campbell Co TN and sold land on the East Fork of Jellico Creek in 1823.
Low Todd’s children include: (1) Dandridge--married to Wm McKinney Oct. 4, 1814 then marries Alexander Hill
He may be the Low Todd who married Polly Simons in Blout Co in 1821.
Samuel Todd
Samuel Todd married Ann Harrison in
James Todd
John Todd
John Todd is disinherited by the will of his father Low Todd in TN in 1792. There was a John Todd in a court case in 1794 and 1795 in Knox Co TN (where Samuel and James eventually settled).
James and John Todd sons of Low Todd were, based on land records in the mid 1790s, in the part of Jefferson Co TN that became Cocke Co. Then, James and John (presumably James’ brother) went to Knox
For the purposes of this discussion, we will assume that there is only one James Todd of fathering age in
James Todd was baptized in 1726 at
James Todd is listed in the court docket as suing Robert McAlpin ca 1777 and suing John Poage and Jane Buchanan in 1777.
In 1789, a James Todd dies intestate in
The only record of James having children is a reference in 1758 to Samuel Davis suing James Todd for failing to completely pay the dowry for Samuel’s marriage to Hannah Todd, daughter of James Todd. Samuel Davis lived about a mile north of James Todd on a branch of Buffalo Creek. If this James were the son of William Todd, then James would have had to have married by the age of 17 and had a daughter who married by the age of 14. This does not seem likely but there doesn’t seem to be any other confirming records of an older James Todd in the area. So this remains a puzzle.
(Note: There is a James Todd who serves in Capt William Nalle’s company of volunteers from
Mary Todd appears to have been baptized at
According to the family tradition reported by Myra McMurtry, Mary Todd was the mother of Mary Hutton. Research in
Mary Hutton was born ca 1752, married John McMurtry ca 1770 and went with him to
Sarah was baptized at First Presbyterian 1729/30. Family tradition reports that she married John Houston in
Their children were: William 1750-1824, James b 1754 md Elizabeth Weir, Matthew d 1847 md Martha Lyle, Samuel 1758-1839 md __ Hall, Alice, Margaret, Esther, Robert.
Margaret Houston married Alexander McKuen/McEwen and had Robert Houston McEwen and Ebenezer McEwen. These McEwens were mentioned in the will of John Todd d 1829 Lincoln Co., TN as being “relatives” of John Todd 1746-1829
Hannah Todd was baptized at First Presbyterian in 1732. We have no records of her. However, some historians have thought that she was the Hannah Todd who reportedly married James McMurtry in
(Others have noticed she is the right age to be the Hannah who married Samuel Davies in 1758, but the court record involving the suit to collect his dowry indicates clearly that James Todd was this Hannah’s father, not William Todd.)
Alice Todd was baptized at First Presbyterian in 1734. Some have claimed she was the wife of James Hutton, but this is based mostly on trying to match the Todds and Huttons. James Hutton’s wife was listed as Ally Hutton in the 1765 land sale.
Lydia Todd was baptized at Abington in 1736, the first child baptized there since 1728. She married James McKee who lived over on Kerr’s Creek to the north of Whistle Creek. She appears to have married him prior to 1753 when their first child Alice McKee was born. In 1758, her father was a witness to a land purchase by James McKee. They remained behind when William Todd moved to
Their children were: (1) Alice b: 1753 md William McQuiddy (2) William, (3) Samuel Todd b 1764, md 1791 Betsey Lowry, (4) John, md 1795 Mary Ann Kinkead (5) Robert Todd b 1766, md 1791 Mary Todd, daughter of John Todd (6) Martha, (7) Mary (Polly) b: 1774 md 1795 James McMurtry (son of Capt. John McMurtry).
This is the family that we believe is the origin of the story about the three Todd daughters of William Todd marrying a McMurtry, McQuiddy and a McKee. Here we have a slight twist – we have three daughters of Lydia Todd – one marrying a McMurtry, one marrying a McQuiddy and one remaining a McKee. This Todd-McMurtry-McQuiddy-McKee story appears to have gotten laid back on the previous generation by asserting William McQuiddy’s mother was a Todd whereas it was his wife Alice McKee whose mother was a Todd.
William Todd was baptized in 1738 at
We do know that a William Todd purchased 400 acres of land in
One way to interpret all this is that William Todd Sr didn’t die in
Another way to interpret this is that William Sr moved to
Both of these conjectures are possible. It will take finding the will or estate record of these William Todds to sort this out.
Samuel Todd is the youngest child of William Todd, Sr. The traditions concerning this Samuel are described more fully in a companion essay, “Correcting the Samuel Todd Traditions”.
Samuel was probably born after 1738 based on the fact that we know he is a child of William but he didn’t appear on the baptismal registers in
In 1767, he was appointed guardian to Sarah, James, Jannet and Elizabeth Young, orphans of Patrick Young. This appointment caused some historians, assuming a sibling relationship of the guardian to the widow, to conclude that Patrick Young’s wife Isabella was a Todd and the sister of Samuel. In 1770, guardianship was transferred to John McMurtry who was both step-brother of Patrick Young and nephew-in-law of Samuel Todd.
Samuel Todd, “son of William”, made a deposition in a court case in 1801 in Botetourt that said that in 1754-56, Tobias Burk came to his father’s house. By this single entry, we know that almost all of the references in the legal records of the area pertain to this one Samuel.
He was a successful landowner and public official. In 1761, he purchased his father’s land on Buffalo Creek. In 1762, he purchased 200 acres of land on Whistle Creek next door to the McMurtrys and near to James Young’s mill. In 1765, he sold the Buffalo Creek land. In 1768, he received permission to build a mill on his Whistle Creek land. In 1771, he bought an additional 126 acres on Whistle Creek.
He continued to acquire and sell land. In 1785, he purchased 45 acres of Pond Bottom on the south side of the
In 1807, he left
Samuel married Jane Lowery/Lowry ca 1761 and they had their first child, Jane Todd 1763. Mrs. Clementine Railey, a descendant of this daughter, has left us a nearly complete listing of the children of Samuel and Jane, though she does not indicate her sources. Their other children were James born 1768-1773, John b early 1770s, Samuel born 1772 or 1778,
James appears in Botetourt Co. Tax records in 1787 and in the 1810 census for Clay Co., KY. He married Polly Lowry in Mercer Co in 1804 and was reported to have inherited the family bible. He died between 1810 and 1820 apparently without issue and his widow continued to live in Clay Co until her death.
Jane married Thomas Crawford in 1794 and later went to Green Co., KY and then to
John married Sarah Sterrett in 1800 and secondly to Anne Hubbard (
Samuel was born in 1772 according to census records and in 1778 according to family correspondence. He married first Charity Dabney, possibly in 1807, in
Sarah Todd married in 1794 in Rockbridge Co. to John Todd, son of Rev. John Todd of Louisa Co., VA. They later came to KY and then to
Hannah married David Ewing who died within 4 years. She then married Mr. Minatt and moved to
Polly married Evan Francis and lived in Bourbon Co., KY and had children, including Samuel Francis, John L/Lowry Francis and Lydia J Francis (later Hawkins). According to a Francis family researcher, Polly died in an explosion. In 1810, Polly’s father deeded land in
John Todd is assumed to be a son of William Todd because he (with wife Mary) sold half of his father’s
When he came to Lincoln Co, his great-nephew Ebenezer McEwen had already settled in
This concludes the discussion of the family of William Todd.