Tope Family Page

In a little grave-yard on a hill, known as Lease's grave-yard, about a mile east of Salem (post-office name Annapolis), on the Salem and Richmon public road, in Jefferson County, Ohio, is the grave of John Tope. On the plain tombstone we read that he died October 26, 1844, - aged 77 years, 11 months and 10 days. Photo courtesy of Eric Johnson

    There was formerly a Lutheran church standing by this burying ground, that was used for a time as a school-house after being abandoned for church use, but the building has now entirely passed away. Here it was the John Tope and his family attended church many a year.
    This gentleman died of pneumonia, it is said, which he contracted by being taken, when so old, to the fall election---elections being held then in October.
    Sorry to say, we have not been able to find any grave-stone from which to get any statements about the wife of John Tope. No mention of her can be found in the grave-yard aforesaid, nor is there any sign about her husband's grave that she was buried at that place. The only other grave by the old gentleman's is that of a daughter, marked by a small head-stone,---"Elizabeth, wife of Enoch Hough, died April 25 1835, aged 27 years, 9 months, and 14 days." We are left to conjecture, therefore, that the old lady outlived her husband, and died at the home of some of her children and was buried in another cemetery.
    The writer was informed, however, by Mr. Rueben Birchfield, a grand old man of Bloomfield, (post-office Bloomingdale), Ohio, eight four years of age past (1893), who was a neighbor of theirs for several years, that Mrs. Tope's maiden name was Mary Helmick and that he married her in Pennsylvania. She became noted as a midwife, and for years kept a special horse for riding on occasions requiring her services. When first married, they had as their house-keeping outfit but a horse, saddle and bridle, and a blanket to lie upon in one corner of the house.
    They were the parents of fourteen children, as follows: Boys, Abram, John, Henry, Jacob, George, Joseph, and one that died in infancy; Girls, Phebe, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Nancy, Mary, Fanny and Deliah.
    In the Mt. Pleasant cemetery, about a mile and a half northeast of Petersburg, (post-office Algonquin), in Union township, Carroll County, Ohio, stands the unembellished marble slab which marked the last resting place of George Tope, who died August 12, 1845. According to the tombstone, he was 82 years, 5 months and 10 days old; but two of his children, Hiram Tope and Barbary McQueen, and other reliable authorities have informed us that this is a mistake, for they had his own statements and reasons for believing that he was most certainly born on March 3, 1761 and hence was in his eighty-fifth year.

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The text above is from History of the Tope Family, by Melancthon Tope, 1896, revised by A. D. Maddux, Copyright © 1981, 1989 (used with permission)

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