2011av006: [identification of item], Helm and Todd family photographs and papers, 1850-1951, University of Kentucky Special collections.
This collection is arranged into two series, papers and photographs. The photographs have been arranged further into folders. The arrangement scheme has been imposed during processing due to a lack of original order. The content of the first series has been arranged chronologically by author. Contents of the second series are arranged by subject and certain subseries by original order.
Benjamin Hardin Helm was born in Bardstown, Kentucky, on June 1831, the son of John L. Helm, a prominent lawyer and politician in Kentucky. He was enrolled in the Kentucky Military Institute and was a graduate of West Point. Following his resignation of his commission from the military, Helm studied law at the University of Louisville and Harvard law schools, graduating in 1953. Helm then joined his father in practicing law in Elizabethtown Kentucky. In 1955, Benjamin Hardin Helm was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives to represent Hardin County for one term. The following year he married Emilie Todd, half sister of Mary Todd Lincoln. In 1860, he was appointed the Inspector General for the Kentucky State Guard.
In 1861, Benjamin Hardin Helm refused the offer to become the Union Army’s paymaster in order to join the Confederate Army. Upon his return to Kentucky, he organized the 1st Kentucky Cavalry for the Confederate States of America. Benjamin Hardin Helm went on to serve as a colonel during the Battle of Shiloh with both the 1st Kentucky Cavalry brigade and the 3rd Kentucky brigade. He was promoted to brigadier general and commanded the 1st Kentucky Orphan Brigade at Shiloh, Baton Rouge, Vicksburg and the Battle of Chickamauga, where he was fatally wounded in the fall of 1863.
Emilie Helm was born Emilie Todd on 11 November 1836 to Robert Smith Todd and Elizabeth Humphreys Todd. She married Benjamin Hardin Helm in 1856 and resided in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She had three children with Helm: Katherine (1857), Elodie (1859), and Benjamin (1862). With the onset ofthe Civil War, Emilie Helm followed her husband to Baton Rouge in 5 August 1862 and to Chattanooga that same year. Following Benjamin Hardin Helm’s death at Chickamauga, Emilie Helm briefly resided with her sister Mary Todd Lincoln at the White House before returning to Kentucky. In 1882, Emilie Helm was appointed postmistress by President Chester A. Arthur, a post she held for the next 12 years. In 1897, the United Daughters of the Confederacy elected Emilie Todd Helm as president of the Ben Hardin Helm chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, named in honor of her late husband. Emilie Todd Helm remained in Kentucky until her death on 20 February 1930.
Katherine Helm pursued a career as an artist following the end of the Civil War. She studied at the Art Students League in New York. On 18 February 1908, her portrait of Jefferson Davis was displayed at Memorial Hall in New Orleans. On 18 February 1925, her portrait of her aunt, Mary Todd Lincoln, was presented to President Calvin Coolidge at the White House. Katherine Helm died 18 June 1937.
Elodie Helm attended the Cincinnati Academy of Music. Upon graduation, she married Waller Lewis of Georgetown Kentucky. Upon her husband’s death, Elodie moved to Helm Place with her mother, brother, and sister. She died on 15 June 1953 in Geneva, New York, on her way to Vermont.
Benjamin Hardin Helm, Jr., served as the commissioner of the New Orleans Bureau of Freight and Transportation following the Civil War. He also served as a freight contracting agent for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and the Chicago Great Western Railroad. Following his retirement in 1917, Benjamin Hardin Helm, Jr., moved back to Kentucky to take over the management of Helm Place. He died there on 18 May 1946.
Source: Green, Maureen Helm,
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This collection is only available electronically.
Collection contains 330 images in varied formats of Helm and Todd family members, friends, associates, and family residences. The bulk of the images were in a series of photographic albums collected and arranged by family members. Images include photographs of Confederate General Benjamin Hardin Helm (1831-1863), his wife, Emilie Todd Helm (1836-1930); and their children Katherine Helm (1857-1937), Elodie Helm Lewis (1859-1953), and Benjamin Hardin Helm Jr. (1862-1946). The collection also includes a number of images of relatives of Emilie Todd Helm, including her father, Robert Smith Todd (1791-1849); her brothers, Alexander Todd (1839-1862) and Samuel Briggs Todd (1830-1904); her cousin, Lyman Beecher Todd (1832-1902); and her nephew, Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926). The material within this collection relates to the Confederate States of America, officers in the Confederate army, the Civil War history of Kentucky, the Kentucky Confederate Brigade and Cavalry Regiment, the Kentucky estates of Helm Place and Longwood, as well as photographs and portraits from the Civil War. Along with Alexander Todd's 1861 diary and Katherine Helm's sketchbook, the collection includes a number of daguerreotypes, card photographs, black and white photographs, cased photographs, and portrait photographs.
2010ms018, Todd family Papers, 1784-1849, University of Kentucky Special Collections 55w32, Robert Todd papers, 1797-1852, University of Kentucky Special Collections
Leather-bound 1860s era cartes de visite album, 30 pages. Loose images tucked between last page and end paper. Album is inscribed on front flyleaf "Emilie Todd Helm."
Leather-bound 1860s era cartes de visite album, 30 pages. Loose images tucked between last page and end paper.
Leather-bound 1860s era cartes de visite album, 30 pages. Only 21 of the 30 pages contained images. Images missing from pages 2, 4-5, 9, 11, 18-19, 24, 26. No indication on the album pages as to the subject of those missing images.
Cloth-bound 1860s cartes de visite album. Originally 24 pages (12 double image holder pages), only 6 holder pages remain. Album numbered as is. Loose images were tucked beteen the last remaining page and the end paper. Inscription on front end paper: "Ely H. L. Todd // Lexington // 1962."