Edgar John Todd, Dd

Edgar John Todd, D.D., a Presbyterian minister, was born in Sussex County, Delaware, April 13, 1792. With the proverbial love for knowledge of the Scotch-Irish, his parents gave him the best education that could be obtained in Kentucky, to which state they removed soon after his birth. He graduated at Princeton in 1816, and was licensed by the New Brunswick Presbytery. In 1817 he was ordained pastor of the church at Flemingsburg, Ky. He was thence called to Maysville, where he labored unremittingly. In 1829 he was induced to accept a call from the church at Frankfort, Kentucky, where his eloquence soon gathered around him the leading men of the state. Henry Clay said of him, "If you want to hear eloquence, listen to John T. Edgar." In 1833 he became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee and continued to discharge the duties of that office with great fidelity and success up to the year 1859, when an assistant was appointed to aid him. He was distinguished for power in the pulpit, and for a degree of liberality of feeling and public spirit which caused him to be regarded as belonging rather to the whole community than to his particular church. Mr. Edgar wrote little, though at one time he was editor of the American Presbyterian, published at Nashville. He died suddenly of apoplexy November 13, 1860.