Robert N. Toppan

Robert Noxon Toppan was born in Philadelphia in 1836. He was graduated at Harvard in 1858 and from the Columbia Law School in 1861, and began the practice of the law in this city. But his tastes were those of the student rather than of the practitioner. After publishing, in 1862, a translation of the Ethics of Théodore Simon Jouffroy, he sailed for Europe, and most of his life for the next twenty years was spent abroad. In 1882 he settled in Cambridge, Mass., where he resided until his death. He was interested in literature, and deeply interested in the study of finance and coinage. He was associated with numerous organizations connected with these subjects, and published a number of valuable works relating to them. Among these were: “The Historic Succession of Monetary Metallic Standards,” “Historical Summary of Metallic Money,” “International Coinage,” and “Some Modern Monetary Questions, Viewed in the Light of Antiquity.” He also edited the “Letters of Edward Randolph” for the Prince Society. Although leading the quiet life of a student, he had a strong sense of political responsibility, and was interested in civil service reform and in tariff reform.

Edward Cary
1902 Century Association Yearbook