Cadmus Ambrose Tope (1863-1940)

Portrait from the Carrollton Free Press Standard, January 4, 1940.

   A Carrollton, Ohio-based hardware merchant for over forty years, Cadmus Ambrose Tope had fleeting involvement in political life in 1908 and 1916 when he was selected as an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention held in Chicago. A lifelong Ohio resident, Cadmus Ambrose "Cady" Tope was born in Harrison County on June 8, 1863, being the son of Hiram and Mary Anne Shultz Tope. He moved to Carroll County at an early age and would attend both the "public schools at Perrysville" and the Harlem Springs College, a Methodist Episcopal Church seminary. 

  For ten years Cadmus Tope taught public school in Carroll County and later was elected to two terms as Carroll County Recorder. Tope married on New Year's Day 1885 to Ella Beamer (1859-1938), their union producing two daughters, Mary Ethel (1887-1964) and Sarah Leona (1892-1969). In 1894 he made his first foray into the hardware trade, establishing a store in Dellroy, Ohio. Two years later he moved his business to Carrollton, subsequently partnering in the hardware firm of Campbell, Tope, and Beamer.

   Tope continued to be involved in the hardware business in Carrollton for the remainder of his life, becoming the sole owner of the aforementioned business in 1918. Tope is noted by the History of Carroll and Harrison Counties as running a:

"Prosperous business....supplied with a complete stock of heavy and shelf hardware, and the various accessories that go to make up the modern hardware store."

  In addition to hardware sales, Cadmus Tope was a prominent figure in the Carroll County Agricultural Society, serving as its secretary for two decades. Tope is also noted as having been a show horse judge, visiting (in addition to Ohio) Indiana and Illinois to judge horses at county fairs. A longstanding member of the Republican Party, Tope was named as an alternate delegate to the 1908 Republican National Convention held in Chicago that nominated William Howard Taft for the Presidency. In 1916 Tope again served as an alternate delegate to the RNC, this time seeing Charles Evans Hughes put up as the party's standard-bearer.
  In the years following his service as a delegate, Tope continued to experience success in the hardware business, being elected as President of the Ohio Hardware Association for a one-year term in 1923. He would also be affiliated with the Hardware Mutual Insurance Company of Coshocton and the Carrollton Methodist Church. Cadmus Tope died in Carrollton on New Year's Day 1940, having been ill for over a year. He was interred alongside his wife Ella at the Grandview Cemetery in Carrollton, coincidentally enough the same resting place of Union Corwin DeFord, a former Carrollton mayor and judge profiled here back in June 2012.

Cadmus and Ella Tope, portrait courtesy of Find-A-Grave.