Norwich, Connecticut

Norwich, Connecticut is a hub of the Lathrop family.  Samuel & Elizabeth (Scudder) Lathrop moved there in 1668.  They were the first of four generations to live there through the American Revolution.  Their children married into Norwich families: Adgate, Crow, Perkins, Hodges, Leffingwell, Bushnell, Mason and Fitch among others. This is also the place where the name changes from LOthrop to LAthrop.

Norwich township was created in June 1659 when Uncas and his two sons Owaneco and Attawanhood deeded a nine mile square to thirty-five proprietors which included our ancestors Thomas Leffingwell, John Mason and Rev. James Fitch.  

The dwellings of Mr. Fitch and Major Mason were near together, facing the Green, and with the river in their rear.  The road running from the Green to the river, and spanning the stream with a bridge separated the two homesteads.  The allotment of Mr. Fitch, consisting of eleven acres, was on the south-east side of the Green; the home-lot of Mason, "eight acres more or less," the early measurements were extremely liberal, -- was on the south-west side. 

John Bradford, four acres, opposite Tracy, with the street and highways on all sides.  "Mr. John Bradford's corner," was quoted as a landmark.  This was at the east end of his lot, where what was then called "the road to Shetucket" began.

South of this ravine was the allotment of Thomas Adgate, whose land met that of Olmstead at the corner, completing the circle of home-lots around the central block. Opposite the homestead of Adgate a branch of the town street ascended Sentry Hill and came down again to the main road below the corner, in the line of the old Indian trail toward the fords of the Yantic.

Upon this side road near where it came into the Town street, was the lot of Sergt. Thomas Leffingwell, twelve acres, with an additional pasture lot of ten acres, with Indian wigwams then upon it, "abutting easterly upon the rocks."  The house lot was eighty-six rods in length upon the narrow highway.  The residence of the late Judge Hyde (originally a Leffingwell mansion,) stands on this old house lot; but the first house built upon it by the ancient proprietor is supposed to have stood on the opposite side of the road, founded up upon a rock and sheltered by a hil..

Sergt. Leffingwell was peculiarly the soldier and guardsman of the new town, and Sentry Hill was the look-out post, commanding the customary Indian route from Narragansett to Mohegan.  A sentry box was built on the summit, and in times of danger and excitement a constant watch was kept from the height.  Here too, in the war with Philip, a small guardhouse was built, sufficient for some ten or twelve soldiers to be housed.  It has of late been called Center Hill, an unconscious change from Sentry, that has probably obtained currency from the supposition that the name referred to its position among other elevations in this multitude of hills.  Nor is the name at present inapplicable, this being not far from the center of the modern township, tough by no means central in reference to the original nine miles square. 

After the first thirty-eight proprietors, the next inhabitants who come in as grantees of the town are John Elderkin and Samuel Lothrop.  Elderkin had two home-lots granted him in remuneration of services.  The first grant of 1667 was laid out in the town plot, but being at too great a distance from his business, it was conveyed, with consent of the townsmen, to Samuel Lothrop, 24th August 1668.  

The Lothrop house-lot comprised six acres, and had a street, highway, or lane on every side of it.  Probably it lay on the side-hill opposite Adgate's.  The early intermarriages in the families of Lothrop, Leffingwell, Adgate, and Bushnell, leading them to divide house-lots and settle in contiguous homes, make it difficult to determine the precise situation of each original grant.  We can be confident only that these families had their first dwellings near together at the east end of the town plot.

The first Samuel Lothrop appears to have erected a house on the town street before 1670.  The house built by Dr. Daniel Lathrop about the year 1745, probably stands on the same site.

Samuel Lothrop, Jr., in 1679, had a piece of land given him by the town, to build upon, "near his father's home-lot," upon which he is supposed to have built the house that subsequently belonged to Col. Simon Lathrop, and still later to Rufus Lathrop Huntington.  A noted pine-tree, originally of great size and height, stood near and pointed out the site even after the house was demolished.  But within a few years, this interesting landmark, the old Lathrop pine, reminding us of the stout Louisburg Colonel has disappeared.  

The next householders after these were the older sons of proprietors, of whom the most distinguished were John and Daniel Mason, sons of the Major, Capt. James Fitch, and Richard and Joseph Bushnell, sons of Mrs. Adgate [Mary (Marvin) Bushnell Adgate]  These are all ranked as first-comers, taking part in the affairs of the first generation.

Richard Bushnell's residence stood conspicuously upon the side-hill where is now the mansion of Daniel W. Coit, Esq.  Courts of larger or lesser significance and meetings of various kinds were held there.  One Mohegan controversy, is said to have held its sessions in the great square room of the Bushnell house. 

. . . the first nuptial ceremony within the bounds of the new plantation, was that in which its widowed minister, the Rev. James Fitch, was united to Priscilla Mason.  This was in October 1664, and as the marriage service was then commonly performed by a magistrate, we may suppose that Major Mason himself officiated upon the occasion.

Excerpts from Frances Caulkins' History of Norwich.

Old Norwich Cemetery were everybody ended up. 

It is part of Leffingwell land and there is a section called Lathrop's field.