CLARENCE LAMONT TOPPING

Source: WEST VIRGINIA In History, Life, Literature and Industry
	by The Lewis Publishing Company - 1928  Volume 4, page 41
        

CLARENCE LAMONT TOPPING, who for many years has been a prominent
figure in Charleston and Kanawha County, is state fire marshal of West
Virginia, a position he has held since 1921.
        He was born at Cheshire, Ohio, July 15, 1867, son of John W. and
Anna (Hampton) Topping, both natives of Athens County, Ohio, and a grandson
of Daniel Topping, a native of New York, and James Hampton, who was born
and reared in Ohio and spent his life as a farmer. Daniel Topping moved to
Ohio when a young man and was a Baptist minister. John W. Topping was a
stone worker and contractor, and in the course of his duties in
construction work for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, moved to West
Virginia, locating at Coals Mouth. he had a service record of four years,
seventeen days, in the Union army, with Company H of the Thirty-sixth Ohio
Infantry, and at one time was assigned duty with a detail of men to capture
the rebel leader, Mosby. He was always active in the Republican party, and
a member of the Methodist Church and Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
        Clarence L. Topping, only child of his parents grew up in West
Virginia, attending public schools and the college at St. Albans, West
Virginia. He took up mechanical work, and became a stone cutter and stone
mason, following those trades for a number of years. He early became
interested in politics and served as city clerk of Charleston two years,
spent four years as clerk at the Hospital for the Insane at Weston, for one
year was chief clerk in the state treasurer's office, and was clerk of the
House of Delegates in the State Legislature in 1907, 1909 and again in
1919. During the interval he was clerk of the compensation commission for
three years.
        Since becoming state fire marshal in 1921 Mr. Topping has
thoroughly reorganized this important service to the state at large, doing
much to educate the people in the state at large, doing much to educate the
people in the state in fire prevention and carrying it on through such
organizations as the Boy Scouts. He compiled and distributed through the
schools a large number of pamphlets giving instructions for fire
prevention.He is secretary and former president of the Fire Marshals
Association of North America, is a member of the national Fire Protection
Association, the National Fire Waste Council of the United Sates Chamber of
Commerce. he issues monthly reports on fire losses and maintains a complete
statistical record of fires in every county.
        Mr. Topping married, in 1887, Miss Mary  E. Wyatt, a native of
Kanawha County, where she was reared and educated. Her father, B. F. Wyatt,
was connected with the sheriff's office for twenty-eight years. Mr. and
Mrs. Topping had four daughters: Tracy, widow of J. M. McVey, and living at
Charleston; Audrey Clothilde, widow of H. T. Lyttleton, and living at
Millboro, Virginia; Kathleen, wife of Harold Stone, sales manager of the
Charleston Drug & Manufacturing Company; and Wilma, who died in 1919, wife
of Fred A. Jesser, leaving two children, Mary Elizabeth and Fred Alexander.
Mr. Topping attends the Christian Science Church, is a Scottish Rite Mason
and Shriner, and a life member of the B. P. O. Elks.





Transcribed by: <AUPQ38A@prodigy.com> (MRS GINA M REASONER), 1999

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