Daniel Lothrop

Daniel Lothrop (August 11, 1831 – March 18, 1892) was an American publisher. Biography Daniel Lothrop was born in Rochester, Strafford County, New Hampshire, August 11, 1831, son of Daniel and Sophia (Home) Lothrop, the youngest of three brothers. He was a lineal descendant of John Lowthorpe, who in the thirty-seventh year of Henry VIII (1545) was a gentleman of extensive landed estates, and of Mark Lothrop, his grandson. The latter settled in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1644, and his line joined that of Priscilla Mullens and John Alden of the Mayflower, Daniel Lothrop being in the seventh generation from them. On the maternal side he was a lineal descendant of William Home, of Home's Hill, Dover, New Hampshire, who held his exposed position through the Indian wars, but was killed in the Indian massacre of June 28, 1689. His estate was in the family name from 1662 to the 19th century. Education and early business ventures Daniel Lothrop was a diligent student; his aptitude for mathematics was remarkable, and he possessed a singularly retentive memory, so that at age 14 he was prepared for college. But waiting a year, at the advice of friends, who thought him too young to enter, circumstances thrust him into the arena of business, and he assumed the charge of a brother's drug store. His love of books soon led him to introduce the sale of them as an adjunct. At the age of 17, he hired and stocked a drug store in Newmarket, New Hampshire and, once it was operational, he called on a third brother to manage it while he established a similar store at Meredith Bridge, New Hampshire (now Laconia) (books being the principal stock). These three brothers remained for more than 40 years in a copartnership with absolute unity of interests, though in different lines of business, and located in different cities. In 1850, Lothrop bought out a book store in Dover, New Hampshire, which he made one of the best and largest in New England, and it became a literary center: A favorite meeting place for the cultivated people of the town. Publishing By 1868, Lothrop was ready to concentrate his forces upon the broader accomplishment of his life purpose of publishing literature for the people, and especially for children and youth. He then transferred his publishing work to Boston, with headquarters at 38 and 40 Cornhill.