Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/185

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TPiE

��GRANITE MONTHLY,

A NKW HAMPSHIRE MAGAZINE

Devoted to Literature, Biographv^, History, and Spate Proc;ri;s.s.

��Vol. VIT.

��JUJS^E, 1884.

��Xo. G.

��HON. JAMES E. LOTIIROP— MAYOR OF DOVER.

��EV REV. ALOXZO H. QUINT, D. D.

��It is true that New Hampshire has been proHfic in sons who, without special advantages of fortune, have so developed and apph'ed their own force of character as to make them- seh'es felt in business and public life. Perhaps our native stock, perhaps the character of our soil which requires energy, have caused this abundance of the true wealth and prosperity of a State. But while such men are not few, it is well to put them upon record, as illusi;rations of success aris- ing from energy, integrity, and industry.

James Elbridge Lotkrop, now on his second term as Mayor of Dover, was born 30 November, 1826, in Rochester, N. H., on the farm of his maternal grandfather, Samuel Home, three miles south of Rochester village. He was the son of Daniel and Sophia (Home) Lothrop. He is descended from a sound stock on both sides. His first American ancestor, on his father's side, Mark Lothrop, was younger brother of Rev. John Lothrop, the first minister of Scituate, Mass., and grandson of John Lowthorpe, of Low- thorpe, Yorkshire, England. Mark was in Salem, Mass., in 1643, but removed to Duxbury, and thence to Bridgewater in 1656, where he died in 1686. His grandson Mark mar- ried Hannah Alden, a great-grand

VII— 11

��daughter of John Alden, of the May- flower, by his wife Priscilla Mullins, commemorated in history and in Long- fellow's charming poem. The one who said, " Why not speak for your- self, John?" was the direct ancestres-;? of James E. Lothrop. Oh the ma- ternal side, Mr. Lothrop is descended from William Home, of Home's Hill in Dover, \vho held his exposed posi- tion in the Lidian wars, and whose estate has been in the family name from 1662 until the present genera- tion ; but he was killed in the massa- cre of 28 June, 1689. Through the Home line, also, came descent from Rev. Joseph Hull, minister at Dur- ham in 1662, a graduate at the uni- versity at Cambridge, England ; fromi John Ham, of Dover ; from the emi- grant John Heard, and others of like vigorous stock. It was his ancestress, Elizabeth (Hull) Heard, whom the old historians call a " brave gentlewo- man," held her garrison-house, the frontier fort in Dover in the Indian wars, and successfully defended it in the massacre of June 28, 1689.

The year after the son's birth, the father bought a farm on Haven's Hill, in Rochester, and removed thither. In this commanding highland, the son's home continued to be for the next fifteen years. Two other sons

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