Jedediah Hyde Lathrop

Jedediah Hyde Lathrop
Collector of the Port of Buffalo
In office 1842–1845
Appointed by	John Tyler
Preceded by	George W. Clinton
Succeeded by	Henry W. Rogers
Personal details
Born	(1806-07-05)July 5, 1806 Lebanon, New Hampshire
Died	November 23, 1889(1889-11-23) (aged 83) Chicago, Illinois
Resting place	Graceland Cemetery
Spouse	Mary Ann Bryan ​ ​ (m. 1843)​
Children	Bryan Lathrop Barbour Lathrop Caroline Huntington Lathrop Minna Byrd Lathrop Florence Lathrop Field Page

Jedediah Hyde Lathrop (July 5, 1806 – November 23, 1889) was an American merchant.

Early life

Lathrop was born on July 5, 1806, in Lebanon in Grafton County, New Hampshire. He was a younger son of Lois (née Huntington) Lathrop (1765–1846) and Samuel Lathrop (1756–1821), a soldier in the Revolutionary War.^[1]

A descendant of the puritan John Lothropp, his paternal grandparents were Elisha Lathrop and Hannah (née Hough) Lathrop.^[1] His maternal grandparents were Theophelus Huntington and Lois (née Gifford) Huntington.^[2]

Career

In 1842, Lathrop was appointed by President John Tyler to succeed George W. Clinton^[3] as the Collector of the Port of Buffalo, serving in that position until 1845.^[4] He acquired a sizable fortune through stock investments, as well as banking associated with the Riggs Bank.^[5] Following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, he made several large investments in Chicago real estate that greatly increased his wealth.^[6]

Lathrop and his wife were strong unionists, and, in the leadup to the American Civil War, the family left Alexandria, Virginia, to settle in Chicago, where his wife's brother, Thomas Barbour Bryan, had been living since 1852.^[7][8] They settled in the suburb of Cottage Hill, today's Elmhurst, Illinois,^[9] where they built their "Huntington" estate in 1864, adjacent to Bryan's "Eagles Nest".^[10][11]

Personal life

Lathrop's grave (left) at Graceland Cemetery

In 1843, Lathrop was married to Mary Ann Bryan (1820–1893), a daughter of Virginia State Senator Daniel Bryan and Mary Thomas (née Barbour) Bryan (the daughter of Thomas Barbour and sister to Gov. James Barbour and U.S. Representative and Supreme Court Justice Philip P. Barbour).^[7] Her brother was philanthropist Thomas Barbour Bryan. Together, they were the parents of:

• Bryan Lathrop (1844–1916),^[12] a real estate developer who married Helen Lynde Aldis, daughter of Asa Owen Aldis,^[13] in 1875.^[14]
• Barbour Thomas Lathrop (1847–1927)^[15]
• Caroline Huntington Lathrop (1853–1854), who died young.^[1]
• Minna Byrd Lathrop (1857–1877), who died unmarried.^[1]
• Florence Wentworth Lathrop (1858–1921),^[16] who married Henry Field, younger brother of Marshall Field, in 1879. After his death in 1890, she married Thomas Nelson Page, the U.S. Ambassador to Italy during World War I, in 1893.^[1]

Lathrop died on November 23, 1889, in Chicago, and was buried at Graceland Cemetery.^[17]

References

1. Funigiello, Philip J. (1994). Florence Lathrop Page: A Biography. University of Virginia Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-8139-1489-3. Retrieved January 20, 2023.
2. Association, Huntington Family (1915). The Huntington Family in America: A Genealogical Memoir of the Known Descendants of Simon Huntington from 1633 to 1915, Including Those who Have Retained the Family Name, and Many Bearing Other Surnames. Huntington Family Association. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-608-31918-6. Retrieved January 20, 2023.
3. "Geo. W. Clinton Collector of the Port of Buffalo". Democratic Free Press. July 27, 1842. p. 1. Retrieved January 19, 2023.
4. "Washington Correspondence". Boston Post. September 3, 1842. p. 1. Retrieved January 19, 2023.
5. Funigiello pp. 2, 14–15
6. Stone, Daniel (February 5, 2019). The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats. Penguin. p. 47. ISBN 978-1-101-99059-9. Retrieved January 20, 2023.
7. "Bryan001". www.elmhursthistory.org. Elmhurst Historical Society. Archived from the original on May 28, 2021. Retrieved January 1, 2021.
8. Funigiello pp. 14 and 16
9. Funigiello p. 25
10. "Elmhurst". DuPage County Historical Society. September 23, 2019. Archived from the original on August 14, 2020. Retrieved May 13, 2021.
11. "Amid Spring Flowers Thomas Nelson Page Married to Mrs. Henry Field; Simple Country Wedding". The Inter Ocean. Chicago. June 7, 1893. p. 3. Retrieved August 11, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
12. "Bryan Lathrop". The New York Times. Chicago (published May 14, 1916). May 13, 1916. p. 19. Retrieved August 11, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
13. "Mrs. Bryan Lathrop.; Widow of President of Chicago Orchestral Association". The New York Times. August 4, 1935. p. 29. Retrieved January 20, 2023.
14. York, National Society of the Colonial Dames in the State of New (1901). Register of the Colonial Dames of the State of New York. Colonial Dames of the State of New York. p. 138. Retrieved January 20, 2023.
15. "Barbour Lathrop.; Botanist Who Spent Fifty Years in Quest of Rare Plants Dies at 80". The New York Times. Philadelphia (published May 18, 1927). AP. May 17, 1927. p. 25. Retrieved August 11, 2024 – via Internet Archive.
16. "Mrs. Page Left $2,000,000.; Half Income to Former Ambassador --$449,000 Cash Bequests". The New York Times. Washington (published June 30, 1921). June 29, 1921. p. 17. Retrieved August 11, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
17. "Deaths: Lathrop". The Inter Ocean. Chicago. November 24, 1889. p. 15. Retrieved August 11, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.