Ohio History Journal

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HON

HON. DAVID TOD.

 

BIOGRAPHY AND PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS.

 

BY GEORGE B. WRIGHT.

 

"Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime;

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time."

"Footprints, that perhaps another

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother

Seeing, shall take heart again."

- Longfellow.

PART I.

 

BIOGRAPHY OF DAVID TOD.

David Tod, second of the Civil War Governors of Ohio,

was born at Youngstown, Trumbull (now Mahoning) County,

Ohio, on the 22nd of February, A. D. 1805.

His father, the Honorable George Tod, settled in Ohio in

1800, having left his native state, Connecticut, with many others

of the early pioneers who settled the Western Reserve. Ohio

was then a territory, and the same year of his advent George

Tod was called on by Governor St. Clair to act as Secretary

in 1802. The same year, when Ohio was admitted into the

Union as a state, Mr. Tod was elected as one of the Justices

of the Supreme Court, and held that office seven years in suc-

cession.

He was after that re-elected to the same position, but on

the breaking out of the war of 1812 with Great Britain he re-

signed his seat on the bench and tendered his services to the

Government, and was commissioned Major, and afterwards pro-

moted to the Colonelcy of the Twelfth Regiment.

During this struggle he won laurels for his coolness, cour-

age and heroism, especially at Sackett's Harbor and Fort Meigs.

At the close of the war he resigned his commission and re-

turned to Trumbull County. Soon after this he was elected

(107)