LATHROP, or LOTHROP, John, clergyman, born in Norwich, Connecticut, 17 May, 1740; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 4 January, 1816. He was a great-grandson of John, who was minister of Barnstable and Scituate in 1634-'53. He began the study of medicine. but afterward chose the clerical profession, and entered Princeton, where he was graduated in 1763. He taught in Dr. Eleazar Wheelock's Indian school while studying theology under that clergyman, labored as a missionary among the Indians, and in 1768 was settled as pastor of the Old North church in Boston. While that city was in the possession of the British he supplied a congregation in Providence, It. I. Returning in 1776, he found that his church had been demolished by the enemy. He assisted Dr. Ebenezer Pemberton in the New Brick church, and in 1779, after the latter's death, became pastor of the united congregations. He received the degree of D. D. from Harvard in 1768, and from Edinburgh in 1785. He wrote his name Lothrop, which spelling is followed by many of his descendants. Besides numerous sermons and papers in the "Collections" of the American academy, he published a " Biographical Memoir of the Reverend John Lothrop" (Boston, 1813), and a " Compendious History of the Late War" (1815). --His son, John, poet, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 13 January, 1772; died in Georgetown, D. C., 30 January, 1820, was graduated at Harvard in 1789, studied law. began practice at Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1797, and was appointed clerk of Norfolk county, but removed soon afterward to Boston, where he became the companion of Robert T. Paine, Charles Prentiss, and other wits, and contributed with them to the Federalist Boston "Gazette," neglecting his profession to indulge his literary tastes. In 1799 he embarked for Calcutta, India, in the hope of improving his fortunes. He taught and wrote for the journals in that city for ten years. While there he approached Lord Wellesley with a scheme for a great university for the instruction of the natives in European science; but the governor-general condemned the project because it would sow the seeds of independence among the conquered race. He returned in 1809 with the intention of establishing a literary journal, but abandoned the purpose because of the political excitement of the time, and opened a school in Boston. Besides teaching, he wrote for the newspapers, lectured on natural philosophy, and was a frequent orator on festive occasions. Removing to the south, he pursued his occupations of teacher, lecturer, and writer for the press in Georgetown and Washington. He finally obtained a place in the post office, but his broken health did not permit him to occupy it alone. He published a fourth of July oration that he had delivered at Boston in 1796, and one at Dedham in 1798; also a poem entitled " Speech of Caunonicus, an Indian Tradition" (Calcutta, 1802; reprinted in Boston, 1803). He prepared a "Pocket Register and Freemason's Anthology" (1813), and in 1819 began a work on the manners and customs of India, but did not complete it, . His shorter poems were never collected.