May, 2017: Centenary of Todd’s Departure from Amherst

In May of 1917, the Amherst College Board of Trustees voted unanimously to grant David Peck Todd an “indefinite leave of absence.” David’s behavior had become so erratic -and so troubling – that Amherst College President Alexander Miekeljohn wrote to Millicent informing her that her parents needed to pack up and vacate Observatory House, a college-owned property. It’s now been a century since the Todds left Amherst and all it had meant to them. But their influence in the town, and at the college, lives on in many ways.

Austin Dickinson