[p. 771] prominent
citizen and postmaster at Ellwood City,
was born at Roaring Springs, Blair County,
Pa., April 18, 1861, and is a son of
Robert and Henrietta (Hammond) Todd.
Mt. Todd comes of Scotch and German ancestry. Both parents were natives of Pennsylvania. The father died in 1868, when Robert A. was about six years old, The mother survived to the age of seventy-six years, dying in 1906. The family consisted of two sons and one daughter: Robert A., Andrew J., who has resided at Altoona, Pa., for many years, and Nettie, who married James Morse and lives at Beaver Falls.
Robert A. Todd obtained his education in the common schools of Blair County and at an academy in Holidaysburg, after which he entered the employ of the Holidaysburg Iron & Nail Company in the capacity of shipping clerk, and remained with that concern for two and one-half years. He then went to the Hartman Steel Company, at Beaver Falls, where he continued from 1883 until 1888, in the latter year entering the employ of the Hartman Manufacturing Company as its representative at Kansas City, Mo. In 1891 he came to Ellwood City, in the interests of the same company, and was assistant manager under Mr. Green. Mr. Hartman was then president of the Pittsburg Land Company and for two years Mr. Todd had charge of the real estate of this organization, on a commission basis. In 1893 he was elected the first justice of the peace of Ellwood City, but this office he resigned, at the same time requesting the Governor to appoint his former opponent his successor. Mr. Todd has been a prominent political factor in this section for many years, and in 1896 he was first elected a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature. His administration of the office so thoroughly satisfied his constituents that he was re-elected in 1898. In 1901 Mr. Todd was appointed postmaster of Ellwood City by the late President McKinley, and was reappointed by President Roosevelt in 1905.
In June, 1887, Mr. Todd married Miss Mary Graham, who is a daughter of Alexander and Elizabeth (Phillips) Graham, of Beaver Falls. They have had three children, two sons surviving, namely: Rollin G., who, at the age of seventeen, has creditably completed his preparatory course at Geneva College; and Norman, who is a student in the Ellwood City schools. Mrs. Todd is a member of the Presbyterian Church, as was his father, while he was reared by his mother in the Methodist Episcopal faith. He is a Mason, belonging to Lodge No. 599, Ellwood, and to Perfection Lodge, New Castle. He is a man of pleasing personality and has a host of friends.
20th Century History of New Castle and Lawrence County Pennsylvania and Representative Citizens Hon. Aaron L. Hazen Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company, Chicago, Ill., 1908
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