Isaac Todd (c. 1842 – 1819) was a merchant of Montreal was involved in the re-establishment of the fur trade after the Conquest of Canada.
He was born into a family of Protestant gentry in northern Ireland whose access to capital and patronage was probably useful to him when he emigrated to Canada. His first cousin, Walter Patterson, was governor of Prince Edward Island from 1769 to 1787.
Todd was living in Montreal by 1764, and soon entered the fur trade. He was arrested for trading without a license on Lake Ontario in the summer of 1766,[1] but this seems to have done him no harm, perhaps because he had friends in high places. His partner in the late 1760s was another Irishman, Richard McNeall; one of them managed affairs at Montreal while the other (usually Todd) took care of their trade at Detroit and Michilimackinac.[2] Trading at Michilimackinac made Todd aware of opportunities that were just opening up beyond Grand Portage, and starting in 1767, he sent wintering clerks into the Northwest, who traded with considerable success.[3]
By the early 1770s, Todd was investing large amounts in the trade beyond Grand Portage, cooperating with other Montreal traders such as Benjamin Frobisher and Maurice Blondeau in what was sometimes referred to as the North West Company. Todd’s partnership with McNeall ended in 1773; he already had a business relationship with James McGill, which was formalized as the company of Todd & McGill in 1776.[4] During a visit to England in 1775-6, Todd had made an agreement with the London commission merchant John Strettell to provide trade goods to the new partnership, and Todd & McGill were soon among Strettell’s most important Canadian customers.
Todd and McGill continued to take part in the Northwest trade through the American War of Independence, but when the North West Company was organized on a long-term basis in 1783-4, they were not included, choosing instead to concentrate on the still lucrative “Southwest trade” out of Lake Michigan into the Mississippi valley. This trade continued until the posts of Detroit and Michilimackinac were surrendered to the Americans in 1796. By that time, Todd was speculating in land, and probably had other business interests which are difficult to document today. He took an interest in public affairs, but never ran for political office, and seems to have moved back and forth across the Atlantic, uncertain where to settle, and alarming his friends with complaints of ill health.[5] He died in 1819 at the English resort town of Bath.
Todd never married, and most of his estate was left to his nephews. Through a relationship with his housekeeper, Jane Kyle, he had a daughter Eleanor, whom he recognized as his child and provided for in his will. In 1812 he had purchased the town of Buncrana, county Donegal, from the trustees of the bankrupt estate of the Marquess of Donegal,[6] and Eleanor Todd was married at Buncrana Castle in 1823.[7]