• General Notes

  8. JOSEPH, born in England, probably in Lambeth, London, in 1624. He probably also came over to America with his father in 1634. The first record known to the author regarding him in this country is that of his marriage--the last Lothropp marriage recorded by his father in the registers of the Barnstable church:
  
  "Joseph Lothropp and Mary Ansell marryed alsoe by him (Brother Thomas Hinckley) Dec. 11, 1650." He settled and lived in Barnstable, where his name on the local records show him to have been an enterprising and honored man. He was a deputy for the town in the general court of the State for fifteen years, and for twenty-one years served as one of the selectmen of the town. On the organization of the county he was appointed the register of the probate court, and recorded in 1666 the first deed put on record in the county. The court had appointed him in 1653 to keep the ordinary of the town. He was admitted freeman, June 8, 1655. In 1664 we find him an acting constable, and in 1667 a received of excise. That he was also in the military line is shown in the titles of lieutenant and captain which successively mark his name.
  
  Mr. Freeman, in his history of Cape Cod County, speaks of him as a "conspicuous member of the Council of War in 1676." He also reports Lieut. Joseph Laythorpe and his brother Barnabas Laythorpe as commissioned to hold select courts in Barnstable in 1679; and names both of these brothers among the agents for the settlement of Sippecan.
  
  His standing is still further shown in a letter from Capt. William Basset written from Casco, in September, 1689, to Gov. Thomas Hinckley, reporting his skirmishes with the Eastern Indians. At the close of this report the captain presents his own and his lieutenants service to the Governor, Esq. Lothrop, and Mr. Russill. We know enough of that day to be assured that none but a prominent and public man would be thus complimented.
  
  Mr. Lothrop probably had no collegiate education, yet he must have been a well educated man--probably with a legal education. His will bears date Oct. 9, 1700, and was proved Apr. 9, 1702, between which dates his death, of which no record is preserved, must have occurred.
  
  He names in his will as heirs, his four sons, Samuel, Barnabas, Hope, to whom he left the homestead, and Thomas; and his two daughters, Mary Denes and Elizabeth Fuller.
  
  In the inventory of his estate are reported 27 volumes of law books, and 43 volumes of classics and sermon books, the inventory amounting to œ8216. One other item of the inventory--"three negroes,"--shows that it belonged to an age past now beyond recall.

Details of Joseph's family