Eli Todd - Personal Life

Personal Life

After graduating Yale at the age of 18, Todd had a two-year apprenticeship in Farmington, Connecticut. After finishing his apprenticeship, he spent the next 25 years serving as Farmington's resident doctor, retiring in 1815. He often consulted with farmers to help them with the productivity of their produce. Todd concluded that “the return to social and political stability during the first years of independence was undoubtedly eased by the availability of unlimited land to the west”.

He was not a very good businessman and although his fame grew statewide, his wealth never swelled to match until he became director of the Connecticut Retreat. In 1796, shortly after starting his work in Farmington, he married Rachel Hills. In the same year, his half-brother Michael died at sea. In 1797, his sister Polly died of spotted fever. His mother died in 1806. In 1811, Rachel's brother Reuben died, and Todd and his wife adopted his two daughters Theresa and Jennet. Rachel died in 1825, and Todd subsequently married her younger sister, Catherine. She would outlive him by 33 years, dying herself in 1866.

His interest in psychology began when his sister Eunice committed suicide, because of the issue of depression. He received a letter from Eunice's husband in August 1829, which told of her death. Todd had thought he had cured her, multiple times, but she still had episodes, and when she had to attend to a large farm in empty Vermont alone, she was pushed over the edge. This began his theory that mental retardation (insanity at the time) was a disease and had a cause and possibly a cure. This began his revolutionary treatments, and what made the government give so much money for the mental hospital to be built.