The Levi Tope Family

LEVI TOPE REDISCOVERED

Chapter 2, Page 7

Levi Tope gravestone The grave of Levi Tope lies in the Wren cemetery, next to the Wren United Methodist Church in Wren, Willshire Township, Van Wert County, Ohio.[i] Over his grave is an obelisk-type monument. The monument gives his death date as Nov. 14, 1889 aged 75y 10 mo 20 da. With this information we conclude that he was born on 25 December 1813.

Levi was born on Yellow Creek, in Jefferson County, Ohio, to George Tope and Maria Elizabeth Bower. It is commonly believed he was born in Carroll County, Ohio, but that county was not formed until 25 December 1832, nineteen years after his birth.

The location of Levi’s birth is determined from information in a Tope family history. In describing the movement of George, the historian stated, George himself went over from Yellow Creek . . . . probably in 1814 sometime[ii] to the present location of the Tope Mill. Barbara Tope, the first child born to George Tope, told the historian that the move was made when she was 10 years old, she having been born March 16 1805.[iii] Thus, with Levi having been born in 1813, it is deduced that he was born in Jefferson County, Ohio.

Levi’s exact position in the family is not known, but he possibly was the eighth of twelve children in George's second marriage. This is how he was shown on a list of children in an early family history.[iv] In George's first marriage to Catherine Straddler, George also had twelve children bringing the total to twenty-four children.

Levi died at the home of his son, Melville Freeman Tope, in Willshire Township, Van Wert County, Ohio, on Thursday, 14 November 1889 , and was buried Saturday, 16 November 1889 [v].

[i] Van Wert County Cemetery Inscriptions, (Van Wert County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society: 1992), vol. V, p. 39

[ii] Melancthon Tope, History of the Tope Family, (Bowerston, Ohio: The Patriot Office, 1896), revised by Austin Dale Maddux, 1980, 28.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid, p. 46.

[v] Obituary, Van Wert Times.November 22, 1889.

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