MEMOIR OF JOHN LATHROP BY ARNOLD A. RAND SPRINGING from such an ancestry and educated amidst stimulating and refining influences, it is not surprising that John Lathrop, Student, Advocate, Soldier and Judge, exemplified those sterling qualities which marked his early life and developed in him that sturdiness of character, that quiet, effective demeanor, that bravery in thought and act, that keen sense of justice, leaning always toward the side of mercy where right was not invaded, that marked a life of mental activity and decisive action combined with courteous demeanor and unfailing resolve. John Lathrop was born at Boston, February 8, 1835, the son of Reverend John P. Lathrop, an Episcopal clergyman and a Chaplain in the United States Navy, and traced his descent from the early puritans. Reverend John Lothrop, his first American ancestor, was a Nonconformist minister in England, and after imprisonment by Archbishop Laud for keeping a Conventicle, he came to America in 1634 and became the first minister at both Scituate and Barnstable. Reverend John Lathrop, the great-grandfather of Judge Lathrop, was pastor of the Second Church in Boston for fortyeight years. His son graduated at Harvard in 1789 and was known as a teacher, a poet and a lawyer. The boy life of Judge Lathrop was marked by studious habit, easy acquisition and a reserve in manner which indicated energy and directness to be availed of whenever occasion should demand. He fitted for college in the public schools at Dedham, where his family were then living, graduated at Burlington College, New Jersey, in 1853, and three years later took the degree of A.M. His college course gave promise of greater development, and when his choice of profession was made, he entered the Harvard Law School, graduating in 1855, and afterwards studied law in the office of the late Hon. Charles G. Loring, then one of the most eminent lawyers in Boston. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1856, and speedily took position as astute counsel with a mind well equipped to follow the specialty of practice to which he devoted himself. In the midst of high hopes for usefulness came the call to arms for the suppression of rebellion and the maintenance of the Union. Without hesitation he volunteered and was commissioned First Lieutenant in the 35th Massachusetts Infantry, being speedily promoted to a Captaincy in the regiment which was from its first appearance in the field thrown into active service at the front, received its baptism of fire at South Mountain and established its position as a fighting regiment at Antietam and Fredericksburg. Of Captain Lathrop it may be said that he was a true soldier, watchful, faithful, ever ready for duty, however arduous or dangerous, possessed of good judgment, courageous and persistent in battle, quick to respond to every demand and ever present with his command ready for duty. When, in the fall of 1863, malarial fever rendered him unfit for further service, with broken health he returned to Boston and took up anew his law practice, devoting himself to admiralty cases. In 1874 he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. In this branch of the law he achieved such distinction that it was a surprise when following his inclination he accepted in March, 1874, the appointment of Reporter of Decisions and for fourteen years devoted himself to absolutely congenial work, winning the appreciation of bench and bar. The headnotes of the Massachusetts Reports from Volume cxv (in 1874) to Volume CXLV (in 1888) are models of clearness and concentration. Appointed a Justice of the Superior Court in 1888, he won for himself distinction for sound law in decisions and the grati |