Toda Hachirōzaemon (戸田八郎左衛門), personal name Tadamichi (戸田忠道), was born in Bunka 10 (1813), the second son of the hatamoto Toda Tadayasu (戸田忠養), lord of Takatsuka village in Atsumi district, Mikawa province. In Tenpō 15 (1844) he became the adopted heir of his elder brother and succeeded to the headship of the house. He trained in Tamiya-ryū (田宮流) under Kubota Kiyooto (窪田清音), whose Kubota-ha he represented.
Promoted within the Kōbusho, he rose to kenjutsu shihan-yaku in Man’en 1 (1860) and to Kōbusho bugyō (奉行; commissioner) in Bunkyū 1 (1861). A second Toda — Toda Tadaaki (戸田忠昭) — is recorded as a Kōbusho kenjutsu kyōjukata from the same Kubota circle, so the Toda name appears twice in the institute’s kenjutsu staff.
