U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Born in King and Queen County, Virginia, he served during the Revolutionary War when he was 16 years old as a Private in the Continental Army with a company of cavalry from Manchester, Virginia. In 1783, he graduated from Liberty Hall College (later became Washington and Lee University) where he studied surveying. He moved to the frontier in the west and settled near Danville in a region of Virginia that would later become Kentucky. He studied law under his cousin, Harry Innes, was admitted to the bar in 1786, and worked in the court system as a recorder. When Kentucky was seeking its statehood, he served as clerk at all ten constitutional conventions from 1784 to 1792. In 1791, he was commissioned by Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph as a Captain of a cavalry detachment in Lincoln County. A few months later, he was appointed as a Lieutenant. When Kentucky was admitted to the Union in June, 1792, Todd was commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel of Militia by the new commonwealth's first Governor, Isaac Shelby. He also became secretary of the Kentucky Legislature. After the Kentucky Court of Appeals was created in 1799, he was appointed by Governor James Garrard as its chief clerk and later became a justice of the court. In 1807, Todd was appointed by President Thomas Jefferson to fill a new seat that was added to the U. S. Supreme Court. As a Supreme Court Justice, he was mostly involved with land and survey claim disputes. He served in that capacity until his death in 1826. Todd was also a Freemason and enjoyed breeding horses in Kentucky. He was married to Dolly Madison's younger sister, Lucy Payne Washington.
