Mary’s life-once glorious, filled with hope and joy-was turning dark and dreary. At Robert’s persistent urgings, she finally wed him on November 1, 1826.
She was in no hurry to become mother to Robert's six children. Betsey accepted the proposal, but found repeated excuses to postpone the wedding. Before she had time to mourn the loss, her father shocked her and her siblings when proposed marriage just six months later to Elizabeth "Betsey" Humphreys. Mary, only six years old, was crushed by the death of her mother. Their attempts proved futile and she passed away at the age of 31, leaving Robert with six children to provide care. In July 1825, three doctors were summoned to the Todd house to try to save her life. George's birth had taken its toll on Eliza and she became deathly ill. A second son George Rogers Clark Todd was born in 1825, bringing the total of the Todd clan to six children. A daughter Ann was born around the time Mary Ann was three years old and in order to avoid confusion between the two daughters, Mary Ann's name was shortened to Mary. Another son Robert Parker soon followed, but didn't survive past 14 months. Eliza became pregnant within a short amount of time after Mary Ann's birth, this time giving birth to a long-awaited son named Levi. Regardless, his lifestyle contradicted his beliefs: he was a slaveholder in an antislavery family in a slave state. He believed slavery prevented Lexington from growing commercially. He freely discussed his dislike of slave-selling and opposed efforts to open KY slave markets to out-of-state imports. Her anti-slavery views grew to match those of her father who supported the KY Colonization Society in its efforts to send the freed slave to Liberia. Her anti-slavery views developed very early in her life and she was extremely proud and pleased when she learned that Mammy Sally was integral in helping escaped slaves make it to the Ohio River. Mary was especially fond of the slave Mammy Sally. In his early years, he'd studied to be a lawyer and was later admitted to the Kentucky bar however, he never practiced law due to the fact there were already too many lawyers in Kentucky.Īlthough the Todds rejected the idea of slavery, they owned one slave for every member of the family. Her father, a Whig politician and storeowner, adequately provided for his family. At that time, Lexington was a rugged frontier town that had been founded by a handful of men that included Mary Ann's grandfathers Robert Parker and Levi Todd, as well as her great uncles Robert and John Todd. The Todds lived in a quaint two story, nine-room L-shaped house on Short Street in Lexington, KY. Preceding her in birth was her eldest sister Elizabeth, followed by her sister Francis. Mary Ann Todd Lincoln was born the third child to Eliza Ann Parker Todd and Robert Smith Todd on December 13, 1818. If we examine her early years, her most impressionable years, we become enlightened and can find compassion for the woman who was the wife of the 16th president of the United States. During the Civil War, both North and South called her a traitor and seldom was a kind word printed about her by the press.
She suffered from depressive episodes and migraine headaches throughout her life and turned to squandering money on lavish gowns and frivolous accessories during the white house year in hopes of finding relief from the void deep within.
From the time she was six, her life took a melancholy turn from which she never recovered. Mary Todd Lincoln, the most criticized and misunderstood first lady, experienced more than her share of tragedy during her lifetime.