Author: Lathrop, Joseph
Biography:
LATHROP, Joseph (1731-1820: WBIS)
He was born in Norwich CT, the son of Martha (Perkins) and Solomon Lathrop. His mother gave him his early education in reading and religion. After the death of her husband in 1733, she remarried; her second husband, a Mr. Loomis, proved a generous guardian to his stepson. After graduating from Yale in 1754, Lathrop taught for a time in Springfield MA while studying theology. In 1756 he was licensed to preach and became pastor of the Congregationalist Church in West Springfield, where he served until 1818. Yale granted him the degree of DD in 1791; Harvard did the same in 1811. He declined the offer of a professorship at Yale in 1793. With his wife Elizabeth Dwight, whom he married in 1759, he had six children. He published occasional poetry which he gathered together for his Miscellaneous Collection of 1786. Most of his sermons appeared in the seven volumes he published between 1796 and 1821, the final volume including a posthumous autobiography. (Appleton; Sprague; Joseph Lathrop "Memoir" [1821]) HJ