TOPLIFF HALL
Largest Dorm Bears Name of Early Hanover Family
AMONG the early settlers of Hanover was Calvin Topliff, 1729-1809, who took up land in Hanover Center and there established his family home. His only appearance on the rolls of history is as a signer in 1784, with 59 other inhabitants of the region, of a petition for the appointment of a justice in that part of the town, the plea being that "settlements are made in almost every part of the town, and at present all have no justice except Mr. Woodward, who lives in that part called the College district, which is at one corner, of the town, and remote from the main body of the inhabitants, which renders it very inconvenient for the people back from the College part." Of his son Calvin, 1758-1837, nothing is known save the fact of his existence. Capt. Abijah, of the third Hanover generation, was more prominent; an officer, as appears from his title, in the state militia, for two years, 1847, 1848, selectman of the town, and also for two years, 1858, 1859, representative in the state legislature.
Capt. Abijah married in 1837 Susan Miller, also of an old Hanover family, and in the same year their oldest child, Elijah Miller Topliff, was born. As was the custom of the times, the boy, brought up in the surroundings of the almost self-supporting farm, "acquired habits of frugality and industry and familiarity with all branches of farm life." What was not so common, however, was an urge for educational opportunities either on the part of the father or the boy or both, so that he was sent, first to Thetford Academy, and then to Dartmouth College, entering the latter with the class of 1852.
As an undergraduate he apparently made no particular mark. He is noted, however, as assigned to the Social Friends and as one of the early members of the Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity. His name appears in the books presented, according to custom, to the library of the former organization by the senior class. There is no evidence that one incongruous item in this selection, Joe Miller's Joke Book, is to be regarded as his personal choice. Professor Sanborn, who for a time had the habit of writing down in a private note book his estimate of the character and future prospects of each undergraduate, was not impressed by the young man. The teacher's judgment—written in professorial Latinis as .follows. "Ultimusin catalogo at peneultimus scientia literisque fuit. Securus ergaprofessores neque multum neque multadicLicit. Maleficii sui non anquam convictus fuit. This statement offered a problem to the writer of this sketch whose Latin, carefully stored away at the conclusion of his freshman year in 1897, has not had the dust upon it disturbed since that time. But with the assistance of a kindly classical colleague (so far as that assistance could be attained as a result of a telephone conversation) the following translation is ventured. "Last in the catalogue he was almost last in science and letters. Self-assured toward his professors, he neither learned much nor many things. (But) he was never convicted of his misdeed (s)." If any classical reader objects to this interpretation (as he well may), he knows what he can do about it—but the one thing which he must not do is to attribute the fault to the learned colleague of the writer rather than to the writer himself.
Professor Sanborn's estimate should not be taken too seriously. The pedagogue was ludicrously wrong in many of these judgments and may well have erred in his opinion of ToplifL At any rate the latter was not devoid of energy. During his undergraduate days he carried on legal studies in the office of Augustus O. Brewster (D. C., 1843), a Hanover attorney, so that, by the end of his course, he was well started on the legal career which he had selected as his life-work.
Upon graduation he went to Manchester, N. H., which thenceforth was to be his home for the nearly sixty remaining years of his life. His preparation in the law was completed in the office of Judge David Cross (D. C., 1841), who, incidentally, survived his pupil by three years, dying in 1914 at the age of 97, at the time the oldest graduate of the College. Upon being admitted to the bar Topliff was taken into partnership by Judge Cross—then one of the leading legal pundits of New Hampshire—and the firm of Cross and Topliff enjoyed a practice which extended to all parts of the state. Later for a time he practiced alone and still later was a member of the firm of Sulloway, Topliff and O'Connor, afterwards Sulloway and Topliff. Association with the redoubtable "Cy" Sulloway— the "Tall Pine of the Merrimac," the most altitudinous and in many ways the most picturesque member of the national House for the more than twenty years of his service there, quick-witted, impulsive, generous but changeable, comprising in his make-up an enormous store of ignorance coupled with extreme self-confidence, holding his district for years in the hollow of his hand, a follower in turn of nearly all the crazier isms of the times—must have had its interesting moments. But the business of the firm was considerable and it may well be that the junior member of it furnished the balance needed to counteract the vagaries of the volatile Cy.
After Sulloway's election to Congress Topliff practiced alone. In 1894 he was appointed by the Supreme Court, together with Alfred T. Batchelder (D. C., 1871) and Isaac W. Smith (D. C., 1846), a trustee of the failed New Hampshire Trust Company, serving alone in this capacity after the deaths of his two colleagues. He devoted all his time to this work until its eventual conclusion in 1907, when nearly $4,000,000 had been collected and disbursed.
In his active years Mr. Topliff was one of the busiest of the lawyers of the state, especially effective in open court appearances. After his death it was said of him that "he was considered one of the best cross-examiners of the New Hampshire bar. In his prime he could get more out of a witness—at the same time getting them (sic) the maddest—than any other contemporary attorney," while another account has it that "in jury trials, which were his special delight, he often indulged in witty sallies for which he became famous."
In his earlier years he was more or less active in politics, ranking with the secondary leaders of the Republican party in the hectic struggles of the state. For many years he was a member of the Republican City Committee of Manchester, serving for much of the period as chairman. He was president of the city Common Council, a member of the legislature in 1861, 1862, 1876 and 1877, and in 1868 was chairman of the Republican delegation to the national convention at Chicago which nominated General Grant for the presidency. In 1869, in the face of strenuous competition, he was nominated to the lucrative position of Collector of Internal Revenue of the second New Hampshire district, an office which he held for eight years.
Mr. Topliff was married in 1885 to Miss Hannah Aldrich, who died in 1891. He had no children and was cared for in his later years by an unmarried sister. After a long period of weakness he died in Manchester on November 21, 1911, at the age of 84 years. The Manchester Union said of his funeral, "Rarely has a more distinguished body of mourners come togetherprofessional and business men associated with Mr. Topliff many years in larger affairs of city and state." It also commented that his "life was one of industry and painstaking effort and his success was due to his own endeavors as well as to his natural ability. With associates of the bar he was always popular, as he was in social relations."
LEFT COLLEGE ENTIRE ESTATE
There is no evidence that Mr. Topliff took any special interest in the College during his long life, although located so near it. In fact the only reference to his later association with Hanover was his attendance in 1902 at the fiftieth reunion of his class. But when his will was read, it was found that, after the payment of specific bequests amounting to $25,000, and after the provision that the income from the remainder of his property should be paid to his aged sister so long as she lived, that residual estate was to revert in its entirety to Dartmouth College, with no restrictions placed upon its application. The endowment, all of which had come to the College by 1916, amounted to $239,902.95.
This money was applied to the plant account— $20,000 for the purchase of Dr. Tucker's house, $27,000 for the bank lot, $63,000 for remodeling Rollins Chapel and Wentworth Hall, $10,000 for Bissell Hall, $39,000 for the heating plant, and the remainder to take over from Associated Investments various properties attached to plant.
In 1920 a new dormitory, the first of the college buildings designed by Mr. Larson, was named Topliff Hall. It is the largest of the college residences halls, accommodating 158 men and is valued at $240,000.
TOPLIFF HALL, NEAR THE GYM, NOW HOUSES MOST OF THE V-12 MARINE UNIT
Continuing Professor Richardson's series on the Dartmouth graduates or benefactors whose names are borne by present College buildings.
