SMITHFIELD, VIRGINIA
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Captain Mallory Todd was a wandering seaman who settled in Smithfield in 1767 and opened a ham curing and shipping business by early 1779. Todd sided with colonists during the Revolutionary War and used his sailing vessels to bring arms and supplies to the colonies, according to: "Smithfield, A Pictorial History," by Segar Cofer Dashiell.
Mallory Todd's son, John R. Todd, later took over the ham business. He owned the area now known as Battery Park, including the Gatling Pointe land. In a deed dated Dec. 13, 1851, he and his wife, Eliza Todd, deeded the Gatling Pointe land to Robinson A. Todd. The deed doesn't state how Robinson A. Todd was related to the couple but it does state that the land was changing hands, "in consideration of natural love and affection" - and because Robinson A. Todd paid $1 for it. Abstracted from: DailyPress.com Extra Hampton Roads Edition. Article by Laurie Koch Thrower.
ISLE OF WIGHT COUNTY 1608 - 1907, by Col. E. M. Morrison. A Brief History of Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Compiled for Distribution at the Jamestown Tercentenary Exposition:
"Before the building of railroads and the advent of steamboats, Smithfield, being the principal port of this county, had a large export and coastwise trade, as has already been recited, principally with the English colonies in the West Indies, the principal articles of export being staves, peas, hoop poles and bacon. The trade in bacon early gave rise to much attention in the feeding, slaughtering and curing of the bacon in this county, and especially as to the ham. One of the packing houses in Smithfield, being the oldest of the kind in this country, the house of E. M. Todd & Co., has been in the business for a period of at least one hundred and twenty seven years as shown by an old invoice dated April 30th, 1779, for hams furnished Ellerston and John Perrot in the Island of St. Eustatius, West Indies, by Mallory Todd, Smithfield, Virginia. [p39] among other articles taken in exchange for hams, is one two-pound cannon, £13 6s and one hat £0 5s 4d. The trading vessel was named Parnelia, Francis Herbert, captain. The invoice is now in the possession of Mr. E. M. Todd, grandson of Mallory Todd, and the proprietor of the present establishment. The shipment of cured hams, annually, from Smithfield, is about forty thousand. The supply of hogs furnishing these hams is limited, or else the shipments would be much heavier. It is a fact that the ham curers have their full supply of hams sold, as a rule as early as the first of March of every year."
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