Ira Hollowell Topping (1820 - 1883)

Born 28 Feb 1820 in Hyde, North Carolina, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 3 Mar 1883 at age 63 in Pantego, Beaufort, North Carolina, United States

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Biography

Ira Hollowell Topping was born 28 Feb 1820, in Hyde County, NC. He married Hannah Windley, the daughter of Ruel Windley and Ann "Nancy" Boyd. They had 1 child: Martha Minerva Topping, born 2 Sep 1844. Ira next married Eveline Barringer Latham. She was born Aug 1826, in Beaufort County, NC, the daughter of Daniel Latham and Mary Ann "Polly" Satchwell. He died 3 March 1883. They had 11 children:

• Samuel Franklin Topping, born 1845, died 1873.
• Mary Ann "Annie" Topping, born 29 May 1847, died 5 Mar 1916
• Mary Bonner Topping, born about 1848, in NC, died about 1848
• Virginia Topping, born 1849, in NC, died about 1849, in NC
• Elizabeth Satchwell Topping, born 4 Aug 1850, died 1935
• Daniel Webster Topping, born 23 Feb 1852, died 8 May 1930
• Charles Topping, born 1856, in NC.
• William Sylvester Cordon Topping, born Jun 1857, died 1913
• Ira Murray Topping, born 1 Jan 1860, in Beaufort County, NC, died after 1860.
• Jefferson Davis Topping, born after 1860, in Beaufort County, NC.
• Thomas Jordan Latham Topping, born 7 Aug 1866, died 27 Dec 1922.

Ira Hollowell Topping was a farmer all his adult life. He first farmed in Hyde County until about 1854, then moved to the Pantego area. After the death of his father, Samuel Topping, in 1866 he inherited a tract of land containing about 211 acres in Beaufort County near Pantego. Prior to receiving the property by will, Ira had built a home on the property, and continued to farm this land until near the time of his death in 1883. The homeplace was willed to his youngest son, Thomas Jordan Latham Topping.

Ira was described by his daughter, Elizabeth Satchwell Topping Gaylord as "a man of average size, dark hair, dark eyes, and had the usual brunette complexion of his generation of Toppings. He was a man of the strictest sobriety and integrity, usually holding the office of magistrate in his community. He was a Primitive Baptist in religious belief and a Jacksonian type of democrat in politics." He was a substantial landowner and slave holder; an advocate of secession; and an upholder of the Confederacy. During the War between the States, he and his family made clothing and assembled supplies and mail in his home which he blockaded through the enemy's line to the Confederates, sometimes a hundred miles away.

The war caused a great change in the family life of Ira Hollowell Topping. Suffering from the drain of family assets used to support the Confederate cause and the lost of slaves to work the land, there was little cash money and much of the land was sold for as little as $1.50 an acre. Taxes could not be paid and the homeplace and surrounding lands were sold by the Sheriff in September 1878 but repurchased the same month from the buyers.” This type of sale and repurchase was done many times to clear the tax lien from the property.

In March 1877 he was elected by the North Carolina General Assembly to serve as Justice of the Peace for two years in Beaufort County. He was reelected a number of times and served until shortly before his death. The position of Justice of the Peace was roughly equivalent to a current lower court judge.

He died 3 March 1883, just a month after his sixty-third birthday and was buried near Pantego, NC in the old Topping/Lucas graveyard. His wife, Eveline Barringer Latham Topping preceded him in death by four months on 28 Nov 1882 and is buried beside her husband.

Sources

• "United States, GenealogyBank Historical Newspaper Obituaries, 1815-2011", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q59V-DR9K : 18 July 2020), Ira Topping in entry for Mrs Elizabeth Topping Gaylord, 1935.

• Topping, Thomas Rudolph. Topping/Latham family history and allied families Alligood, Brewer, Chilton, Ethridge, Glasgow, Satchwell, Shavender, Sillery, Wiggins, Windley and Winstead : generation to generation. Charlotte, North Carolina: T.R. Topping, 1994. pp 5-6