Elisha Todd 1806-1881

TODD, SMITH

Posted By: Sharon Elijah (email)
Date: 11/21/2018 at 11:29:52

19 May 1881 - West Branch Local Record

Elisha Todd, an aged gentleman of Springdale, died of old age at his home on Monday. He was buried Wednesday at 3 P.M., in the Phelps burying ground, northeast of Springdale. His friends will be glad to learn that his death was almost painless, and that he sank calmly to rest. He was rational up to the hour of his death, and was steadfast to his peculiar religious convictions to the last. We hope to give a more extended notice in our next issue.

26 May 1881 - West Branch Local Record

Died in the village of Springdale, on the 16th of May, 1881, of a general infirmity resulting from old age and chronic diseases, Elisha Todd, aged nearly seventy-five years.

The deceased was born in Barnesville, Belmont county Ohio, on the 6th of June, 1806. His father and mother, Stephen and Sabilla Todd, being among the earliest settlers of that locality, the freedom of the surroundings of his birthplace, begot in him a dislike of mental and physical shackles. His earliest feelings were a repugnance to human slavery and was in time one of the earnest men who voted for James G. Birney for President. In 1827 he was married to Salle Smith, and in the fall of 1841 moved to Morgan county, and in 1852 moved to Iowa.

He held a birthright in the Society of Friends, but about the age of thirty he became ?? with what was then termed Universalism, which gradually grew and expanded in him into a grand charity and great love for the whole human race. He felt that he was human, and governed by human impulses and the forces of nature, and that all of his fellows were subject to the powers of organism and surrounding forces. He claimed no sainthood for himself, nor gave it to others; but in later years he gave the race more credit for good than he in his boyhood had been taught to believe it merited.

Freedom of thought he claimed to be his birthright, and this freedom which he claimed for himself he claimed for others as well and with this free thought came a boundless faith that the power which brought all into existence would care for all in the end. (the remainder of this obit is unreadable)