Biographical Sketches
HENRY TOPPING
A retired attorney and civil engineer, who is numbered among Kansas City's leading residents, was born in Rochester, New York, October 30, 1835. His childhood and youth, however, were passed in Ohio, his early boyhood being spent in Ravenna, while later he lived in Cleveland. His father, Alexander Topping, was reared on a farm in Dutchess county, New York, but, being possessed of natural mechanical ability, upon his removal to Rochester he took up the carpenter's trade and afterward that of gunsmith. He married Lucy Cleveland Ward, a native of Poultney, Vermont. Henry attended the common schools for a time, but afterward entered a private school and took a course in civil engineering in Cleveland. Subsequently he engaged in railroad work - except the summer of 1855 spent in mining engineering in the copper mines on Lake Superior - from 1853 until 1858. He assisted in the original survey and in the construction of the river division of the Cleveland & Pittsburg railroad, having charge of a portion of this line.
Mr. Topping started out in this line of business when a boy of 17 in the humble position of rodman, but his ability won him rapid promotion until he was advanced to the position of assistant engineer, and as such he had superintendence of the construction of 14 miles of road. He had at this time not yet passed his 20th birthday. He was a close student and lover of mathematics and the sciences, and was especially proficient along those lines. This naturally led him to engage in the work of civil engineering. After his marriage in 1857, and partly owing to the panic of that year and the consequent stoppage of public works, he took up the study of law in St. Clairsville, Ohio. His thorough research and steady application fitted him for admission to the bar in 1859, and he at once entered into practice, in connection with his former preceptor, with whom he remained for 2 years, or until the outbreak of the war, which changed the current of his life like that of many others.
In October, 1861, Mr. Topping was appointed by Governor Dennison, of Ohio, as adjutant of the 3rd battalion, first Ohio cavalry. Later he was made regimental adjutant, and served with General Buell's army in Kentucky and Tennessee, and was in General Thomas' division, which acted as reserve for General Buell's army at Shiloh. He remained with his command until after the occupation of Corinth, when General Halleck, who was in command, ordered all staff officers to the cavalry and artillery not company lieutenants, -- holding such appointments unauthorized by the army regulations, -- to be mustered out. This order included Lieutenant Topping, and in June, 1862, at Paducah, Kentucky, he was honorably discharged. He was at once, however, attached to the engineers' corps as a civilian assistant engineer on topographical work. He was at first connected with General Rosecrans' command, and later was sent to the Shenandoah valley, in Virginia, where he was maily engaged in making surveys for military maps. In the summer and fall of 1862 he was with Rosecrans at the battles of Iuka and Corinth, and in the winter of 1862-3 was with Grant's army in Mississippi and Tennessee. He accompanied Colonel Dickey, Grant's chief of cavalry, in the raid on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, and afterward served in West Virginia, participating in Crook's and Averell's raids and engagements in that state, receiving special mention for valuable service at the battles of Droop mountain, Moorfield and on Averells' raid on the Virginia & Tennessee railroad in the winter of 1863-4. When the war closed he was in the Kanawha Valley, in West Virginia.
During the year succeeding Mr. Topping was employed as engineer by the Averell Coal & Oil Company of New York, opening coal mines, building railroads, etc., in the Kanawha valley. In the spring of 1866 he came to Kansas City, and has since been prominently identified with its interests. Here he embarked in the grocery trade, which he carried on for 2 years, when he removed to his present farm, a mile and a quarter East of the corporation limits. Since 1869 he has been extensively and successfully engaged in fruit growing. In connection with his brother-in-law, W. H. Tallman, of Wheeling, Virginia, he purchased the farm of Judge Boarman, who had largely planted it with fruit. It comprised 80 acres and was bound on the North by 12th street and South by 18th street. After cultivating the entire amount for 17 years, in 1886, Mr. Topping sold a portion of the place, and has platted the remainder, calling it �Belmont Heights.� He has opened streets and made other improvements, and this is now a desirable building site.
In his political views, Mr. Topping is a stalwart republican, who maintains a deep interest in all public affairs, and is thoroughly well informed on all question of the day. He has made a special study of one of the most engrossing questions of the present, -- the money question, -- and an open letter from his pen, published in the New York Tribune, sets forth the question in a somewhat new light, and ably demonstrates the result of his careful investigation. Mr. Topping wrote:
�I have just read Mr. Horr's article entitled 'Honest Dollars' in the Tribune. Like everything from his pen, it is earnest, honest, clear, concise and convincing, and I agree with every word except those paragraphs conceding the quality of honesty to the 'greenback dollar.�
�That the government had the right to compel the people to take such dollars, however much depreciated in time of national peril, is conceded by every one, and I agree with Mr. Horr when he says, 'Such a law in time of peace would be thoroughly dishonest.' But when he says, 'I do not believe any nation on the face of the earth ever resorted to such legislation except in time of great national distress and as the only means of preserving national existence,� I think he is not sustained by the facts of our own recent history.
�Thirteen years after the close of the war, by the act of May 31, 1878, forbidding the retirment of greenbacks, the government re-asserted the power to stamp the flat value inherent in the legal-tender quality upon its circulating notes, and the supreme court decision of March 3, 1884, fully upholds the act and the power.
�I believe the legal tender acts, thus upheld in time of peace as well as in time of war by the supreme court, have introduced a principal as hurtful to sound national finance as the doctrines of the Dred Scott decision were demoralizing to the national conscience. I believe the decisions of 1870 and 1872 to be 'good law' and that of 1884 'bad law;' but so long as the latter stands unreversed the advocates of flat money have a 'standing in court.�
�True, the court only affirms the power and leaves the expediency to the discretion of congress; but when the power is so broadly asserted the expediency is likely to be inferred. I believe that a decision ought to be reviewed and reversed in the court of conscience, as the Dred Scott decision was, or, better still, overruled by a constitutional amendment.�
�We will never get rid of financial heresies so long as congress is supposed to have the power and right to compel the people in time of peace to accept for their labor or other think of value a piece of paper having no value.�
Mr. Topping was married on the 1st of October, 1857, in Bridgeport, Ohio, to Mary R. Tallman, daughter of John C. Tallman, of Bridgeport, Ohio, a well-known banker. Mrs. Topping still has considerable interests there in manufacturing concerns. She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and a most estimable lady. To Mr. and Mrs. Topping have been born the following children: George, a farmer of Chase county, Kansas, who married Miss Louise Grinnell, of Cedar Rapids, Michigan, whose paternal ancestors came over in the Mayflower; John, secretary of the Aetna Standard Iron and Steel Works at Bridgeport, Ohio. He married Miss Minnie Junkins, a merchant of Bridgeport. Wilbur, secretary and general manager of the Bellaire Stamping Company, of Harvey, Illinois, manufacturers of the Columbian Enamel Ware, gold and enameled signs, etc. He married Clara Taylor, daughter of Elder John Z. Taylor, formerly a Christian minister of Kansas City; Albert, who is in the office of the Aetna Standard Company, in Bridgeport, Ohio; Ellen, wife of Samuel Hazlett, teller in the People's Bank of Wheeling, West Virginia, and a son of Dr. Hazlett, of that city; Lucy, who became the wife of John M. Wilfley, who was for a number of years with the Kansas City National Bank, and afterward removed to Kokomo, Colorado; and Cornelia, who is now attending the high school. Mrs. Wilfley died in Leadville, Colorado, in February, 1895, and was buried in the Elmwood cemetery of Kansas City.
In 1886 Mr. Topping erected his fine residence. It is a beautiful and commodious
suburban home, 1 � miles East of the city limits, and stands on a commanding eminence surrounded by a beautiful lawn, while within it is supplied with all the comforts and many of the luxuries of life.
This page was last updated August 2, 2006.