Representative women of New England/Mabel Loomis Todd

by Mary H. Graves

MABEL LOOMIS TODD, author and lecturer, the wife of Professor David P. Todd, of Amherst College, was born in Cambridge, Mass., the only child of Eben Jenks and Mary Alden (Wilder) Loomis.

Her first American ancestor on her father's side was Joseph¹ Loomis, who came from Braintree, England, in 1638, and settled at Windsor, Conn., in 1640. The sixth ancestor in that line was her father's grandfather, the Rev. Josiah⁶ Loomis, of Stafford, Coim., and Ashfield, Mass.

Her maternal grandparents were the Rev. John Wilder, Jr.,⁷ and his wife, Mary Wales Folies Jones. The Rev. John Wilder, Sr.,⁶ (Dartmouth College, 1784), her great-grandfather, was for many years minister of the Congregational church in Attleboro, Mass. His wife, Esther Tyler, was daughter of Colonel Sanmel Tyler, of Preston, Conn., a Revolutionary officer of note. The Wilder line is traced back through Jonas,^{5 4} John,^{3 2} to Thomas' Wilder, who became a member of the church in Charlestown, Mass., in 1640, and some years later removed to Lancaster, Mass. (See book of the Wilders.)

The Rev. John Wilder, Jr.⁷ (Brown University, 182.3), was settled in 1833 as pastor of the Trinitarian Congregational Church in Concord, Mass., where he remained six years. Three fine elms still standing in front of the old parsonage in Concord were pl.anted by him, one for each of his three children. He died in 1844. His wife, Mary, the mother of Mrs. Loomis and grandmother of Mrs. Todd, was a daughter of Nehemiah and Polly (Alden) Jones, of Raynham, Mass.

Through the last named ancestor Mrs. Todd is a descendant in the ninth generation of John Alden, who as proxy for Myles Standish wooed Priscilla Mullins, "the Mayflower of Plymouth" in the poet's talk, and won her for himself. The line from John and, Priscilla continued through their son Joseph,² who married Mary Simmons; John,³ married Hannah White; Joseph,⁴ married Hannah Hall; Ebenezer,⁵ married Ruth Fobes; Polly (or Mary),⁶ married Nehemiah Jones; Mary Wales Fobes,⁷ married the Rev. John 'ilder, Jr.; Mary Alden Wilder,⁸ married Eben Jenks Looini.s; to their daughter, Mabel" Loomis Todtl.

Eben Jenks Loomis was ecUicated in the Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard Univer- sity. When a young man, he entered upon the active duties of his chosen profession, as an astronomer in the office of the Nautical Alma- nac at Cambridge. The office a few years later being removed to Washmgton, D.C., he went with it, and in the United States Naval Obser- vatory hcUl the position of Senior Assistant, American Ephemeris, for forty years, tendering his resignation in 1900, after rounding out a half-century of astronomical service. In 1889 Professor Loomis was a member of the United States eclipse expedition to the west coast of Africa. He is the author of a volume of " W^ay- side Sketches," 1894; "An Eclipse Party," 1896; and a l^ook of poems, recently published. With Mrs. Loomis he is passing the present winter (1903-1904) in her native town, Con- cord, Mass. His own birthplace was Oppen- heim, N.Y.

The education of Mabel Loomis, received largely at the Georgetown Seminary, was sup- plemented by two or three years' study in Bos- ton, her special attention being given to Ger- man* painting, and music, vocal and instru- mental, inchuling a thorough course in har- mony under Stephen A. Emery. After spend- ing one winter in the gay society of Washington, she was married March 5, 1879, to David P. Todd, then connected with the Unitetl States Naval Observatory in that city. Soon after- ward Mr. Todd received a call to the chair of astronomy in Amherst College (his Alma Mater), being made director of its observatory and also professor of the higher mathematics at Smith College.

Mrs. Todd has always taken nmch interest in her husband's work. In 1887 and again in 1896 she accompanied him to Japan to observe the eclipses of the sun. The second eclipse they viewed from Yezo, the most northern island of the empire. Here, in a little fishing village bordering the Sea of Okhotsk, she made a study of the Ainu, tlie barbarian aborigines of Japan, in a region never before visited by a foreign woman. She made a collection of their utensils, garments, and ornaments, for the Peabody Musemn in Salem. In the spring of 1900 she joined the Professor at Tripoli, in Barbary, whither he had gone to observe the sun's eclipse of May 28. Early in 1901 Profes- sor and Mrs. Todd, this time accompanied by their daughter, Millicent, then a stu<lent at 'assar College, sailed for Singapore, afterward locating the Amherst College Eclipse Expedi- tion on the island of Singkep^ in the Dutch East Indies, where the phenomenon was ob- sei-ved on May 18. Trips were made later to Siam and Borneo, and several weeks were spent in the Philippines, where with General Corbin they made a tour of the archipelago. A visit to China, a third visit to Japan, and a short stay at the Hawaiian Islands completed the circuit of the globe for this expedition. Mrs Todd has contributed many articles to the Na- tion, the Outlook, St. Nicholas, the Century, and other magazines. " Footprints," her first book, was publishetl in 1883. In 1890 she edited the first volume of the posthumous poems of Emily Dickinson, which met with instant success, and in 1891 she edited a second volume. In 1894 slie edited two volumes of Miss Dickinson's letters, and also published a volume upon "Total Eclipses of the Sun," the only standard popular work upon that subject. In the autumn of 1896 a third volume of Emily Dickinson's poems, as well as "A Cycle of Sonnets" by an anony- mcjus author, appearetl under her editorship. In 1898 appeared, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., "Corona and Coronet," a narra- tive of the unique yachting trip to Japan in search of the eclipse of 1896. Her revised ver- sion of Steele's " Fourteen Weeks in Astronomy " was published in 1900.

" Mrs. Todd," as well remarked by one who speaks not idly, "is a woman of many talents. A student of art and science, she is also a viva- cious and attractive speaker, welcome every- where on the platform, as in society." Each season for several years she has given more than fifty drawing-room talks, and addresses in halls, churches, schools, and club parlors, upon subjects coimected with popular astronomy, Japan in various aspects, the Ainu, the Hawai- ian Islands, Siam, the Dutch East Indies, the PhilipjMnes, the Alhambra, Carthage, the Ober- ammcrgau Passion Play, Tripoli, and on other topics, many of her lectures being profusely illustrated with stereopticon slides. Among the clubs ;ui(l colleges, more than ohe hundred in number, before which she has spoken, a few may bo mentioned, merely to show the eccentricity of her comet-like wanderings: the New England Women's Club and Appalachian, of Boston; Century Club, San Francisco; Woman's Club, St. Johnsbury, Vt.; Kosmos Club, Wakefield, Mass.; New Century Club, Philadelphia; Woman's Club, Waterbury, Conn. ; Rhode Island Woman's Club, Providence; Contemporary Club, Trenton, N.J.; the Fortnightly, Bath, Me.; Vassar College; Amherst College; Adelbert College (Cleveland, Ohio) ; and Bryn Mawr. Mrs. Todd does not care for the kind of activity involved in holding official positions of any kind, and never accepts one without genuine protest. She has served as one of the Massachusetts Committee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, for three years as a director in the Massachusetts State Federation of Women's Clubs, and in other places of responsibility in connection with club work. She is now Regent of the Mary Mattoon Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, and President of the Amherst Historical Society.