Todd, Levi W.

TODD

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 10/7/2008 at 14:01:58

Levi W. Todd

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.194, Neola Twp.)
Levi W. Todd, physician and surgeon, Neola, was born in Jennings County, Ind., in September, 1854. The family originated in Scotland, but subsequently removed to Ireland, where a man by the name of Todd (his first name believed to have been David) married Hannah Owen, and came to this country with other members of the family previous to the American Revolution. They settled at Pequea, Lancaster Co., Penn., and had three sons - John, Robert and Levi - who were educated by their uncle, Rev. John Todd, who conducted a literary institute in Virginia. About 1778, the three brothers emigrated to what became Fayette County, Ky. They were influential in forming the institutions of the State, and took an active part in the Indian wars of those days. John Todd, under commission from Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, was authorized to establish the county of Illinois. In the commission, dated December 12, 1778 at Williamsburg, then the capital of the State, he was styled County Lieutenant Commander, and as such organized the county, and thus became in fact, though not in name, the first Governor of Illinois. At the outbreak of the Indians west of the Ohio, he was commissioned Colonel, and was slain at the battle of Blue Licks, August 18, 1782. Robert Todd, the second brother, acquired the title of General, in connection wit the Indian wars and later military operations in Kentucky. One of his daughters became the wife of Gen. William O. Butler, of Carrollton, Ky. Levi Todd, the youngest of the three brothers, was engaged in the early Indian wars in Kentucky, and was a Lieutenant under Col. Clark in the expedition that captured Fort Gates and the village of Kaskaskia July 4, 1778. Lieut. Todd afterward acquired the title of General. He was Clerk of the Circuit Court of Fayette County, Ky; spent most of his life at Lexington, Ky., where he died. His daughter Hannah was the mother of Hon. John T. Stuart; his son, Robert Todd, was the father of Mrs. N. W. Edwards, Mrs. Dr. William S. Wallace, Mrs. C. M. Smith and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, all of Springfield, Illinois. Gen. Levi Todd, the third son, before mentioned, was the head of the family of our subject Dr. Levi W. Todd, youngest son of Levi W. and Demia (Butler) Todd, he born in Ohio in 1807, was Treasurer of Jennings County, Ind., for fourteen years, during which time he studied medicine, afterward graduated at Cincinnati, and is now practicing at Litchfield, Minn. Our subject's mother was born in New York State in 1812, and died in 1876; she was the mother of ten children, one of whom is dead. Our subject began his education in the common schools of Jennings County, Ind., and afterward spent two terms in Franklin College, Johnson County, Ind. He came to this county in 1870, and after teaching school for two years, returned to Indiana and read medicine with his father. He graduated in 1879, at Hahnemann Medical College, Chicago; then located in Neola, where he has since practiced medicine. Dr. Todd was married, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1878, to Fannie Foot, born in Connecticut July 4, 1855, daughter of Reuben M. and Nancy (Taylor) Foot, natives of Connecticut. Dr. and Mrs. Foot have one child - an infant daughter, Demia. Members of the Christian Church. The Doctor is a member of the I. O. O. F., of the Iowa Legion of Honor and is a Republican.