Some character traits of five generations to their great-great grandson Charles5 Lathrop
Descriptions primarily drawn from E. B. Huntington’s Memoirs of the Lathrop and Huntington families
E. B. Huntington, who gives an insider view of the Lothrop/Lathrop families involved, notes: Samuel2 Lathrop married “Nov. 28, 1644, Elizabeth Scudder, who had been dismissed from the church in Boston Nov. 10, 1644, to remove her church relation to that in Barnstable. She is reported in Savage as a sister to that John Scudder who was in Barnstable in 1640.”[2]
E. B. Huntington continues:
[Samuel] had made the acquaintance of Miss Scudder in Boston, where he commenced his business life as house builder, afterwards combining with [his] extensive farming operations. Their marriage was recorded by is father on the Barnstable church Register as follows: ‘My sonn Samuel & Elizabeth Scudder marryed at my house by Mr. Freeman, Nov. 28, 1644.’
He is reported in 1648, as one of the five Lothrops at Barnstable liable to bear arms.
In 1648 he removed to New London, Connecticut, then called Pequot….
His house lot in the new plantation was the third in order from that of John Winthrop, Jr., Esq., and his name is one of the first eighteen to whom were assigned lands on the east side of the ‘great river’ of Pequot, and for these the lots were drawn on the 17th and 31st of January, 1648–9.[4]
No record was found to reveal the specific reason why Samuel and Elizabeth chose to move to New London, Connecticut, away from their families at Barnstable, but for a home builder by trade the opportunities may have seemed limitless with the burgeoning developments planned in and around New London. Huntington recounts how “almost at once Mr. Lothrop is assigned by his new townsmen to places of responsibility and honor” including as one of the judges “to sit in the trial of all causes between the inhabitants in which the differences were under forty shillings.”
Twenty years after moving to New London, in 1668 Samuel2 Lathrop and wife Elizabeth (Scudder) Lathrop and family left their life at New London and moved up the river to Norwich:
Miss Caulkins in history of Norwich says, ‘after the first thirty-eight proprietors the next inhabitants who came in as grantees of the town are John Elderkin and Samuel Lothrop.’ A house lot was first granted to John Elderkin, who, finding it too far from his business, had it conveyed to Samuel Lothrop.
Samuel Lathrop’s Home Lot
cited in Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich [Conn.], 1660–1800[5]
Mr. Lothrop appears to have erected a house on the town street before 1670, which from that time became his home. The house built by Dr. Daniel Lathrop, his great-grandson, about 1745, probably stands upon the same site…
The house lot of about seven acres on which he settled, covered mainly that hill side enclosed by the streets and lanes, as now, which lies south of the present residence of Daniel W. Coit, Esq., and extending down to the present Main street. He added during his life time successive tracts of land amounting to about four hundred acres.
The town records of that time are very imperfect, but we find Samuel Lothrop recorded as ‘Constable in 1673 and 1682 as ‘Townsman’ in 1685–dignified local offices in those days.[6]
First House Lots at Norwich, 1660
There appears to be no diary to reveal Samuel2’s reflections about the travails of his youth in England with imprisonment of his father for worshiping God according to his conscience. Samuel2 did not seem to leave a written record of the sufferings of his mother, his siblings and himself at about age thirteen during his father’s incarceration—or of his feelings when his father was released from prison (or escaped with the help of an empathetic soul). LINK Samuel2 apparently left no diary that records the rigors of their transatlantic voyage or the challenges of commencing three new towns. There is no diary extant by his wife Elizabeth2 Scudder that shares her feelings about her nine notable children,[8] or her life in England including the decease of her father when she was about age 1, or the death of her stepfather when she was age 14, or about her large posterity at the time of her own death. E. B. Huntington does give a glimpse of what occurred between 1690 and 1700 to Samuel2 Lathrop and references the remarkable size of their posterity in 1734, less than 100 years after Samuel2 and Elizabeth2’s marriage:
After the death of [Samuel’s] first wife, of which no record is preserved, he married in 1690, in Plymouth, Mass., a maiden lady, Abigail, the daughter of Deacon John Doane of Plymouth. She was born January 29, 1632, and lived until 1734, Mr. Lothrop having died February 29, 1700. The following notice of the second Mrs. Lothrop is found in Miss Caulkins’ history of Norwich: ‘On her hundredth birthday a large audience assembled at her house, and a sermon was preached by the pastor of the church. At this time she retained in a degree the intelligence and vivacity of her earlier years. At the time of her decease the descendants of her husband amounted to 365.’
Mr. Lathrop made a nuncupative will, proved in 1701.[9]
Frances Manwaring Caulkins gives Samuel Lothrop’s death date as 19 February 1700.[10]
From the Scudder family viewpoint, the 365 descendants of Samuel2 Lathrop and Elizabeth2 Scudder by 1734 were as much Scudders as they were Lathrops. Now, 300 years later, one can only imagine the great numbers of those who can claim to be their direct posterity.
First Church at Norwich
E. B. Huntington’s historical nuggets about the generations between Rev. John1 Lothrop and his great-great grandson Charles suggest Rev. John1 Lothrop’s influence remained strong to produce respected, serviceable men of high caliber whose list of character traits continued to bring honor to his memory. These men lived in a time when it was anticipated that their duty was to bring honor to God, to the names of their fathers and mothers, to their children and to their community.
From Samuel2 and Elizabeth (Scudder) Lathrop to Charles6 Lathrop through son Samuel3:
Samuel3, son of (Samuel2, Rev. John1), born in 1650, is noted by “His rank among the citizens of Norwich is shown in the enrollment of 1780, where his name stands next to the two Deacons Huntington, their names following those of the three ministers…He was a member of the First Church in Norwich.”[12]
Samuel3’s son Nathaniel4 (Samuel3, Samuel2, Rev. John1) was born in 1693. He was commissioned a Lieutenant on 12 December 1745 and served with his brother Col. Simon on the Louisburg expedition. It was apparently he who, in 1735, sold Samuel2’s farm at Namucksuck, on the west side of the Great River, New London, it having remained in the family from the time of Samuel2’s move to Norwich until then.[13]
Nathaniel4’s son Azariah5, born in 1728, he and his wife both being members of the First Church of Norwich, is described as “solid and enterprising…both in the church and in civil life.”[14] Azariah4 died in 1810, well before his granddaughters went to Ceylon, but his frequent prayers in his fields in behalf of his grandchildren “to the latest generation,”[15] must have had a good effect on the kind of people they were.
From Samuel2 and Elizabeth (Scudder) Lathrop to Charles6 Lathrop through son Israel3:
Israel3, younger brother of Samuel3, was described: “His rank among his townsmen in 1739, when all the freemen were enrolled, was next to his brother Samuel. He was a man of worldly thrift, and had a family of enterprising sons, who are said to have planted themselves on seven hills within the old nine-miles square of Norwich….His headstone in old Norwich Town burial ground is the oldest one now there with an inscription on it. It gives us this tribute to his worth: ‘Here lies buried ye body of Mr. Israel Lothrup, ye Husband of Mrs. Rebekah Lothrup, who lived a life of exemplary piety & left ye Earth for Heaven Mar. ye 28, 1733, in ye 73d year of his age.”[16]
Miss Caulkins describes Israel3 Lathrop and his offspring:
Israel, the third son of the proprietor Samuel, was the father of seven sons and three daughters….The youngest but one of this train was the Rev. John Lathrop, a distinguished minister of Boston, but born at Norwich, May 5, 1739.[17]
From there it was female Scudder line of descent to Deacon Charles6 Lathrop that added to him his Huntington family heritage, they too being founders of Norwich:
Rebecca4 Lathrop (Israel3) md. Isaac4 Huntington (Christopher3, Christopher2, Simon1).
Abigail5 Huntington (Isaac4) md. Azariah5 Lathrop.
Christopher2 Huntington had immigrated to America, becoming a fatherless child either in the passage or shortly after their arrival. His mother Margaret (Barret) Huntington[18] remarried to Thomas1 Stoughton (Rev. Thomas) as his second wife. They settled at Windsor, Connecticut. After his marriage in 1652, for a few years he settled at Saybrook, Connecticut. Christopher2 and his brother Simon2 Huntington were among the founders of Norwich in 1660. Christopher2’s son Christopher3 had the distinction of being the first male child born at Norwich.[19] E. B. Huntington describes Christopher3, the younger, as:
Born, thus, during the first year of the history of his native town, and destined to grow up in its infancy, and spend his manly vigor and mature age in its forming period, he was also designed and used by Providence, as a prominent contributor to the prosperity of its most vital secular interests, and a marked pillar of support to those of religion. His character, molded, mainly, by the very best of influences, those of a quiet home, in which every day piety hallows every day toil, and over which a sense of duty rules as the deepest incentive to its labors and its pastimes alike, unfolded early with every element of consistency and strength. In a period of exposure and calling often for extreme adventure, he became resolute and fearless. In an age devoted to the revival of a simple and primitive piety, he became a humble, inflexible Christian; and with the best and amplest means at his disposal, trained himself to the most intelligent and effective discharge of every duty, either to God or the world.[20]
Christopher3 was made a deacon in 1695 or 1696 and “served with marked ability to the close of his life.”[21] It was in that atmosphere that he raised his son Isaac4 Huntington, born 5 February 1688. Isaac4 Huntington married Rebecca4 Lathrop, granddaughter of Samuel2 and Elizabeth2 (Scudder) Lathrop through their son Israel3.[22] Isaac4 and Rebecca Huntington’s youngest daughter Abigail5 Huntington, born 29 July 1739 in Norwich, became the wife of Azariah5 Lathrop and the mother of Deacon Charles6 Lathrop. E. B. Huntington describes Abigail (Huntington) Lathrop as “a most excellent woman, who ‘happily exemplified the meek and quiet spirit of the gospel…. Among her grand-children were the missionary sisters—the first Mrs. Myron Winslow, Mrs. Cherry, Mrs. Hutchins [Hutchings], and Mrs. Perry, three of who were buried…at Oodooville, Ceylon…”[23]
This recital of E. B. Huntington’s assessments of the character of the people who molded Charles6 Lathrop has shown the family influences on Charles that were well ingrained in him to be passed to his missionary daughters.
Who Was Joanna (Leffingwell) Lathrop The American Lathrop Story Begins
Lathrop/Scudder Missionary Daughters and Experiences in Ceylon, To Be Continued
[1] Seal of the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts.
[2] E. B. Huntington, A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this Country: embracing the descendants, as far as known, of The Rev. John Lothropp, of Scituate and Barnstable, Mass…, (Hartford, Cn.:, The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company, 1884), 38. Hereafter Lo-Lathrop Memoir.
[3] Frances Manwaring Caulkins, History of New London, Connecticut: From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1860, (New London: H. D. Utley, 1895), 25.
[4] Huntington, Lo-Lathrop Memoir, 38–39.
[5] Mary Elizabeth Perkins, Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich [Conn.] 1660–1800, 209.
[6] Huntington, Lo-Lathrop Memoir, 39–40.
[7] Frances Manwaring Caulkins, History of Norwich, Connecticut, from its possession by the Indians to the year 1866, (Published by the Author, 1866), 67.
[8] Huntington, Lo-Lathrop Memoir, 46–48.
[9] Huntington, Lo-Lathrop Memoir, 40.
[10] Caulkins, History of New London, 160.
[11] Caulkins, History of Norwich, 129.
[12] Huntington, Lo-Lathrop Memoir, 46.
[13] Caulkins, History of New London, 159.
[14] Huntington, Lo-Lathrop Memoir, 78–79.
[15] Miron Winslow, A Memoir of Mrs. Harriet Wadsworth Winslow, Combining a Sketch of the Ceylon Mission:(New York: Leavitt, Lord & Co., 1835), 10.
[16] Huntington, Lo-Lathrop Memoir, 47–48.
[17] Caulkins, History of Norwich, 220.
[18] Donald Lines Jacobus and Edgar Francis Waterman, “Margaret (Barret) Huntington,” Hale, House, and Related Families: mainly of the Connecticut River Valley, (Hartford, CT: The Connecticut Historical Society, 1952), 647–651, https://archive.org/details/halehouserelated00jaco/page/646.
Robert Charles Anderson, “Simon Huntington,” The Great Migration Begins, volume 2, G–O, (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995), 1044–1046.
Robert Charles Anderson, “Thomas Stoughton,” The Great Migration Begins, volume 3, P–W, , (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995), 1777–1779.
[19] Huntington, Huntington Memoir, 65–66, 70.
[20] Huntington, Huntington Memoir, 70.
[21] Huntington, Huntington Memoir, 71.
[22] Huntington, Huntington Memoir, 79.
[23] Huntington, Huntington Memoir, 96.
Hi. I am working on my family tree. I am researching my Newcomb family tree. I am finding much conflicting information on Ancestry. Did Samuel Lathrop (1622-1700) and Elizabeth Scudder(1625-1690) have a daughter by the name of Deborah? I am finding other family trees on Ancestry that have a Deborah Lathrop as the wife of my 7th great grandfather, Simon Newcomb. Thank you for your time.