Title:  The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884

Author:  Various

Release Date:  October 25, 2004 [EBook #13864]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of this project gutenberg EBOOK the Bay state monthly ***

Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

[Illustration:  Daniel Lothrop]

THE

Bay state monthly.

A Massachusetts Magazine.

Vol.  II.

December, 1884.

No. 3.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by John N.
McClintock and Company, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at
Washington.

* * * * *

Daniel Lothrop.

By John N. MCCLINTOCK, A.M.

The fame, character and prosperity of a city have often depended upon its merchants,—­burghers they were once called to distinguish them from haughty princes and nobles.  Through the enterprise of the common citizens, Venice, Genoa, Antwerp, and London have become famous, and have controlled the destinies of nations.  New England, originally settled by sturdy and liberty-loving yeomen and free citizens of free English cities, was never a congenial home for the patrician, with inherited feudal privileges, but has welcomed the thrifty Pilgrim, the Puritan, the Scotch Covenanter, the French Huguenot, the Ironsides soldiers of the great Cromwell.  The men and women of this fusion have shaped our civilization.  New England gave its distinctive character to the American colonies, and finally to the nation.  New England influences still breathe from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the great lakes to Mexico; and Boston, still the focus of the New England idea, leads national movement and progress.

Perhaps one of the broadest of these influences—­broadest inasmuch as it interpenetrates the life of our whole people—­proceeds from the lifework of one of the merchants of Boston, known by his name and his work to the entire English speaking world:  Daniel Lothrop, of the famous firm of D. Lothrop & Co., publishers—­the people’s publishing house.  Mr. Lothrop is a good representative of this early New England fusion of race, temperament, fibre, conscience and brain.  He is a direct descendant of John Lowthroppe, who, in the thirty-seventh year of Henry VIII. (1545), was a gentleman of quite extensive landed estates, both in Cherry Burton (four miles removed from Lowthorpe), and in various other parts of the country.