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JAMES TODD, LOUISVILLE, KY.,
Born February 26, 1821; died February 9, 1890.
CONTRIBUTED BY REV. JOHN M.
RICHMOND, D.D., OF LOUISVILLE, KY.
Mr. James Todd, son of John
and Martha McCall Todd, was born in Newry, County Down, Ireland, February
26, 1821. His family was an old and honorable one that, impelled by
religious persecution, went to Ireland from Scotland in the seventeenth
century.
In 1838, while still a lad
seventeen years of age, he left the scenes and associations of his native
land to seek his fortune in the New World. In the same year he arrived in
Louisville, Ky., which then became his home, and where he continued to
reside for more than half a century.
At first he entered the
employ of a mercantile firm, and soon exhibited qualities of mind and
habits of life that guaranteed for him success. Persevering and frugal, he
was enabled in 1847 to engage in business for himself, and brought to bear
upon all his undertakings such clear judgment and exact business methods
that he soon became one of the most prosperous and reliable of business
men.
From boyhood Mr. Todd was a
Christian whose faith was deep, well-grounded, and increased with the
years. Always a Presbyterian, his last connection was with the Central
Presbyterian Church, to whose interests he was sincerely devoted. He had
clear and decided views of Christian life and Church work, was a firm
believer in and a diligent student of the word of God, and until declining
health laid him aside was a faithful and successful teacher in the
Sabbath-school.
Such men are missed when
they are taken away. . We cannot well spare them, but "the memory of the
just is blessed."
On May 16, 1865, Mr. Todd
was married to Miss Mary Louise Mc-Gavock, of Nashville, a granddaughter
of Felix Grundy, the eminent lawyer and statesman, whose name occupies a
conspicuous place in the history of Kentucky and Tennessee. Besides the
bereaved widow, two children mourn his departure. They are Miss Louise and
James Ross Todd. Miss Mary Todd, an only sister, who' resides in Dublin,
also survives him.
He quietly fell asleep at
his home in Louisville, in the confident hope of a glorious awakening, on
Sabbath morning, February 9, 1890; and was buried from the Central
Presbyterian Church February 11, 1890, and laid in the beautiful Cave Hill
Cemetery to await the "resurrection of the just." |
