Janet and Robert Wolfe Genealogy --- Go to Genealogy Page for John Lothrop

Notes for John Lothrop

1584 John Lothrop was baptized at Etton, Yorkshire, 20 December 1584. [1]

1605 John Lothrop graduated from Cambridge University with a B.A. in 1605, and M.A. in 1609. [2]

1622-1623 John Lothrop became curate of the church at Egerton, County Kent from ca. 1611 to 1623. [3]

1623 John Lothrop was called to succeed Rev. Henry Jacob (who had left for Virginia) at the First Independent Church in Southwark, Surrey. Independent worship being illegal, Lothrop's services were conducted in secret. In 1632 he was imprisoned, but released on bail in 1634. [4]

Nathaniel Morton (New Englands Memoriall, p. 140-41) relates some of his background, including the death of his first wife in England. [5]

1634 Governor Winthrop's Journal under date of 18 September 1634 records "The Griffin and another ship now arriving with about 200 passengers. Mr. Lathrop and Mr. Sims, two godly ministers coming in the same ship." [6]

That same year Lothrop went to Scituate, where he formed the first church there, and then in 1639 the church divided and Lothrop went with the group that settled at Barnstable, becoming minister there, too. His records at Scituate and Barnstable are in NEHGR 9:279-87, 10:37-43.

Two of his letters of 1638 to Governor Prence suggest the forthcoming move from Scituate [7]. One of the letters is also signed by Anthony Aniball, _____ (Henry) Cobb, and _____ (Isaac) Robinson "In behalf of the church." He became a freeman on 7 June 1637 (PCR 1:60).

He married (1) Hannah House (sister of Samuel House, q.v.) and (2) Ann _____, who has variously been thought to be a Hammond or a Dimmock; since his son Barnabas was born 6 June 1636, he married his [p.321] second wife probably in 1635 [8](see Wakefield, Marriages).

1653 His will (MD 11:42) dated 10 August 1653, inventory 8 December 1653, names his sons Thomas, John (in England), and Benjamin and daughters Jane and Deborah; "to the rest of my Children both mine and my wives my will is that every of them shall have a Cow." His children were to have a choice of one of his books each, and the rest were to be sold, with the money divided among them. Some of his lands were to be sold, with the money to be divided among the children "that have the least portions." [9]

Research Notes:

"There is a possibility he may have been the father of Elizabeth, the unwanted wife of John Williams, q.v. PCR 4:107 shows that on 3 October 1665 "Mr. Barnabas Laythorpe hath seen cause, in the behalfe of his sister [Elizabeth Williams] and those related to her, to revive the former complaint [against John Williams]." For reasons too lengthy to give in detail, Barnabas Laythorpe could only be the son of Rev. John Lothrop, and sister in this context could only mean blood sister or sister-in-law. Since Barnabas's wife was Susanna Clark, daughter of Thomas Clark, q.v., and there was no Elizabeth in the Thomas Clark family, the term probably meant blood sister. Otis/Swift, Barnstable Families, devotes some fifty pages to Lothrop and his descendants, but is not well documented. See also NEHGR 84:437." [10]


Footnotes:

[1] E. B. Huntington, A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this Country (Ridgefield, Conn: 1884), 23, [InternetArchive].

[2] E. B. Huntington, A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this Country (Ridgefield, Conn: 1884), 23, [InternetArchive].

[3] E. B. Huntington, A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this Country (Ridgefield, Conn: 1884), 23, [InternetArchive].

[4] E. B. Huntington, A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this Country (Ridgefield, Conn: 1884), 24, [InternetArchive].

[5] E. B. Huntington, A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this Country (Ridgefield, Conn: 1884), 24-25, [InternetArchive].

[6] E. B. Huntington, A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this Country (Ridgefield, Conn: 1884), 25, [InternetArchive].

[7] E. B. Huntington, A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this Country (Ridgefield, Conn: 1884), 22-32, [InternetArchive].

[8] Clarence Almon Torrey and Elizabeth Petty Bently, New England Marriages prior to 1700 (Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1985), 474, [GoogleBooks].

[9] E. B. Huntington, A Genealogical Memoir of the Lo-Lathrop Family in this Country (Ridgefield, Conn: 1884), 33, [InternetArchive].

[10] Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People 1620-1691 (Salt Lake City, UT: Ancestry Incorporated, 1986), 320, [GoogleBooks].