Mrs. M. A. Todd A Pioneer
Active In Good Works.
[Nice Photograph accompanies this article.]

In view of the fact that Mrs. Mary A. Todd had been identified with the interests of Cartersville and Bartow county since 1846, and that her membership antedated that of any other member of the Cartersville Baptist church, having also been a member of the Woman’s Mission Society since its organization, more than thirty years ago, the society some weeks ago appointed a committee to prepare a sketch of her life and ask its publication in the Cartersville News, knowing that such a sketch would bring out things of interest to younger citizens as well as pay deserved honor to this worthy woman.

Owing to Mrs. Todd’s absence from town the committee was unable to procure the data necessary for an earlier publication, and Mrs. Todd’s unexpected death on the 13th of July causes what was begun as a life sketch, to appear as a memorial.

Mrs. Mary A. Bailey Todd was born in Laurens county, S. C., May 23rd, 1824, and moved with her brother, who was her guardian, to Georgia in 1846, living at first at the place which is now the home of Dr. W. H. Felton.  Afterward her brother bought the farm known for many years as the Baxter place, now the home of Mr. William Jackson.

The move to this place brought her quite near to the Pettis Creek Baptist church which afterwards became the First Baptist Church, of Cartersville.  Of the Pettits Creek church Mrs. Todd had many pleasant recollections.  She knew the church under pastors Dr. Lewis, Judge Wright, Rev. John Crawford and Rev. A. W. Buford.  There were many prominent families connected with the church at that time, and Mrs. Todd recalled clearly the large crowds that came together from all over the country to hear the distinguished preachers of that time.

Mrs. Todd, then Miss Bailey, returned and in 1850 was married to Mr. J. M. Todd whom she had met in Georgia.

In 1851 she joined the Pettits creek church and was baptized by Dr. J. W. Lewis.

During a good many years Mr. and Mrs. Todd were away from Cartersville, in Alabama and Chattanooga, but always kept in touch with the home place, coming to their home in town and a farm on the river.  Mrs. Todd mentioned being here during the war when Dr. Thomas Rambatu was pastor of the church.

They refugeed to South Carolina but returned early in 1865, when Cartersville was almost desolate.  The town had been destroyed, the country laid to waste and the railroad torn up between Atlanta and Dalton.

Mrs. Todd knew the church in its prosperity and its poverty.  These were trying times, but few people having returned since the evacuation by the army, there being but little upon which to subsist.  Then it was that Mr. and Mrs. Todd were the main stays of the church.

Mrs. Todd has been a member under every pastor since the war, Dr. J. G. Ryals, Dr. R. B. Headden, Dr. Daniel, Rev. W. C. Cooper, Rev. C. E. W. Dobbs, Rev. Briscoe, Dr. Patterson, Rev. A. W. Bealer, and Rev. J. E. Barnard, during all of which years she has found her greatest pleasure in the house of God.

Her last conversation was a bright cheerful one of the songs that she love, reading from her hymn book the words of one that she sang every night.
“He’ll go with me all the way.”