Starr Lathrop and His Dad
Edward Starr Lathrop was born June 29, 1883 in Danbury, Ct to Charles Ozias and Anna Keenan Lathrop. Charles Ozias Lathrop was born on August 14, 1860 to Frederick and Laurenda Evelyn Palmer Lathrop of West Cornwall, CT. (I have seen her name also spelled Lorinda.)
In the 1900 census, Starr’s mother Anna tells us she was born in Connecticut in June 1861 and that both her both parents were born in Ireland. Indeed, Anna’s father, Michael Keenan, was born in Ireland in August 1832 and immigrated to the United States in 1850. Anna’s mother was Mary Lillis, she was born in Ireland in September, 1833 and came to the states in 1852.
Both Michael Keenan and Mary Lillis made the trip from Ireland to Savannah, Georgia. This is where they met and soon after married and had their first child, Catherine, in 1857. Actually, the 1857 date presents a bit of a genealogical road block in the Keenan family tree because in the 1900 census, both Mary and Michael report they had been married for 40 years. Actually, if they weren’t married for approximately 44 years at that time, there would be a problem concluding their first born was theirs. This census entry, by the way, is the only indication I can find of when they might have gotten married. In any event, Mary Lillis’ obituary points us in the right direction.
From The Newtown Bee Feb 2007
Article from The Newtown Bee August 5, 1903
Mrs. M Delury, or Delohery, was the first born, Catherine Keenan.
Censuses are a wealth of information but they don’t take the place of birth, death and marriage certificates. Our ancestors were very bad at math! Often you will find a person will enter into his 1900 census he is 40 years old and then in his 1910 census, he once again enters he is 40. I’ve seen it often! The year in which they were married and their children’s ages are also wild guesses and ages often don’t end up as arithmetic would indicate they should from census to census. The older the child gets, the further off the parents guesses become.
The obituary of Mary Kennan is proof enough to me Catherine is the daughter of Mary and Michael Keenan. The two adopted children never changed their name to Keenan. One is John Creagh and other Mrs. AR or AH Jennings, who I can’t even find. The pallbearers are easy to find. They have all long ago had their places secured in the Lathrop/Keenan Family Tree. The one exception is a new entry, John Costello. I found him to be John Joseph Costello, born in Newtown in 1878. His father was Thomas Costello and his mother was Catherine Brennen. Catherine was the daughter of Stephan Brennen and Margaret Lillis. I have no proof of who the parents of either Margaret or Mary Lillis are but since John Costello is the nephew of Mary Lillis Keenan (Actually, the great nephew), I am assuming Mary and Margaret were sisters. Therefore, Margaret Lillis Brennen is my great-great aunt.
Thomas Costello died in 1885 and Catherine Brennen Costello was married a second time. This time to Stephan Farrell. One of the flower bearers is their son, “Lawrence Farrell of Hawleyville.” So, Lawrence Farrell and John Costello were half-brothers. I have yet to track down Thomas Cullinan.
The “adopted” children were probably not actually legally adopted. In the 1800s, many times generous families would just take in needy people. They would give them homes and a family life but they would not actually legally be family members. When studying the will (below) of Mary Keenan, this become apparent because the adopted children are not mentioned in it. Also, Mary and Michael had another child, Mary Fanning Keenan who was probably not adopted but she predeceased her parents and so, wasn’t mentioned in the obituary. She died at only 21 years of age and is buried with her parents in the Keenan plot. The name Julia Fanning is mentioned as Mary Keenan’s granddaughter in her will. We would have to think Julia is the daughter of Mary Fanning Keenan.
The will makes it absolutely clear that Anna Keenan Lathrop is a daughter of Michael and Mary Keenan. What brought this to question in my mind is where the obituary states Mr. and Mrs. Keenan were married in Savannah Georgia and came north after the close of the war. Catherine is documented to have been born in Savannah, Georgia but Anna has always stated in every one of her censuses she was born in Connecticut. Anna was actually born two months after the war started. So, one option is that Michael Keenan served in the war for a very short time. In this scenario, for him, the war was over before it started. Or, Mary had family in Newtown and took her child Catherine and her child to be Anna with her from Savannah to Newtown. Then, after they made it through all the dangers a trip such as that would present, they waited in their new home, which was not at all known to Michael, for him to show up there four years later. This, by itself, would make an amazing story!!! It’s a lot more reasonable in my mind to go with the deserter story. I don’t know how everyone feels about it but I would not think a man was reprehensible because he fled from the Confederate army. Still, a third option is probably the most logical; Anna was born in Georgia or at least, somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line. At four years old she was too young to remember that part of her life and at nineteen years of age when she filled out her first census, the state in which she was born was the furthest thing from her mind. If her parents had filled it out, it probably would read a different. Truthfully, my money’s on this third option.
No matter what, at one point the Keenans were southerners and our great-great grandfather was called to fight in The Civil War with the confederate army. Any “war is hell,” especially that one! My Great-Great Grandfather has to be greatly honored for making it through and then moving on to the building of a wonderful family tree! The Keenans must have suffered greatly from this war and may well have headed north because they had nothing left! Once again, I’m sure it would make a great story if we knew exactly what happened.
Mary Keenan’s Will
This will makes me think it was Mary Lillis Keenan’s family who had all the wealth in the beginning. She seems to have had family in Newtown which gives rise to the question, “Why did she go to Savannah in the first place?” Or, maybe the whole family landed there after the trip from Ireland. To me, this is how it looks. The Civil War was over in 1865 and the first census available to us after that time was from 1880. So, 15 years would be plenty of time for wealthy people to settle down in a new area and purchase large swaths of land. Is this exactly what happened? To be continued…
All his life and even today, Edward Starr Lathrop is always referred to simply as Starr. This is true even in his grandmother’s obituary. There seems to be no records showing us if Starr was born in Danbury Hospital but whether or not he was, it is very likely his first residence was 87 ½ Liberty St in Danbury. This house is shown as the Charles Lathrop residence in the 1888 Danbury City Directory.
1888 City of Danbury Directory
In the middle of 1888 Starr turned 5 years old. Since there is no other record of his family’s residence during his first 4 years, it is reasonable to assume 87 ½ Liberty St was Starr’s early childhood home. If the street numbers are still the same as they were when Starr lived there, 87 ½ Liberty St was across the street from what I best remember as The Old Oak.
If we go back a couple of years before Starr was born, (this is potentially bombshell stuff!) We find Charles, 19 years old, single, living at 111 ½ Main St, Danbury CT. We also find “Annie” Keenan, single, living in the same place. She was listed as 16 years old in this census but actually, she would have been 18. In this census, both Annie and Charles were said to be living in a household of 1. So, it appears 111 1/2 Main St was a boarding house and there were several people living there, each of whom had rented a room. It is also reasonable to assume both Charles and Annie had left home to be on their own, or perhaps actually ran away from home, Charles from West Cornwall (West Cornwall was part of Sharon back then) and Annie from Newtown. As fate would have it, they each ended up living in this cheap boardinghouse and it was there they each met their eternal love. This is of course, a great explanation if you don’t let your imagination run wild. Through his teen years and until he was married, we find Starr living with his grandparents, Mary and Michael in Newtown. This makes it hard to believe Annie ran away from home. To the contrary, this makes it seem Annie and her family had a long-lasting rapport. There are no tell-tale signs indicating whether or not Charles O and his family had a harmonious relationship.
1880 Census
By the way, if the buildings were numbered the same in 1880 as they are today, 111 ½ Main St was right next to St. Peter’s Church. This is a building I remember from my childhood as Nellie Delury’s Funeral Home and furniture store. From the 1927 Danbury City Directory, we see the Delury “block” 111 – 113. I don’t know exactly what buildings they owned or if 111 – 113 was just the building next to St. Peter’s Church.
When I copied this part of the 1927 Danbury Directory, it wasn’t necessary to include Mrs. Ida Delong, employed at The Hotel Green but I did for two reasons. First, The Hotel Green brings back great Danbury memories and second, Mrs.DeLong is a resident of my son-in law’s family tree. Therefore. I just couldn’t chop her out!
To try to make sure the Charles Lathrop living on Main St Danbury in 1880 wasn’t a different Charles Lathrop, I checked his father’s family Census from 1880 and sure enough Charles wasn’t there. Then I checked his father’s census from 1870 and he was there. He was 9 years old. There were 3 differences I noted between the 2 censuses, first, Charles’ sister Laura wasn’t born yet in 1870. Second, our Great-Great-Grandmother Laurenda had passed away between 1870 and 1880 and our Great-Great-Grandfather Frederick had given up being a farm laborer and became a shoe maker instead. (Good move!!! I would think it would be a much better smelling occupation!)
1880 Census
1870 Census
Annie and Charles both worked in a hat shop at the time the 1880 census was taken, so maybe they met at work and then decided… well, the imagination is started to run wild so, I’ll quit there. The point is we don’t have a marriage certificate for them but in the 1900 hundred census they both stated they had been married for 20 years. If this is true, they may had gotten married before they moved to 111 ½ Main St or while they were living there. Either way, it must have been a quiet wedding. In the 1880 census, Charles stated he was born in New York. All his other censuses tell us he was born in Connecticut. So, in 1880, he may have been flying under the radar for one reason or another. Another possible contributing factor to the geographical inconsistency is the fact that for many decades, the borderline between Sharon, CT and Amenia, NY had been a very faint one. This was especially true in the time period Charles lived there.
1900 census
Charles and Annie’s first son, Charles Henry was born in 1882 and of course, Starr was born in 1883. For all we know, one or both of them could have been born in the boarding house on 111 ½ Main St. It seems more logical though that Annie and Charles started their family after they moved to Liberty St.
1890 Censuses are hard to come by and city directories that included Charles and Anna Lathrop were sparce in the years between 1880 and 1900. In the 1889 directory however, Charles was simply listed as living in Danbury Ct. In this same directory, his business address was listed as Nichols St, which was one block away from 87 ½ Liberty St. Of course, this is when referenced by today’s house numbering. In any event, surely Charles worked very close to home and since he was listed as a” Hatter,” there might have been a hat factory or hat shop on Nichols St in 1890. Certainly, there was one close by.
Back in those days, there were hat factories everywhere in Danbury and even Bethel, for that matter. So, there is no telling which hat factory was on Nichols St. It is interesting most Danbury hat factories were close to the Still River and for sure, Nichols St is very close to it.
Down the road a bit, in this time period, at the end of Pahquioque Ave, on East Liberty St, National Hat Factory existed. In the middle 1800s it was a flourishing hat factory! However, in the late 1880s, National Hat Factory started having financial trouble and in a short time it went out of business. It was in 1818 Starr wrote on his WW1 draft card that he was employed by M. Delohery and Sons Hat Factory on East Liberty St.
“M Delohery and sons” or at least, the name “M Delohery” brings us to an entirely new discussion:
As we have seen, the first born of Mary and Michael Keenan was Catherine Keenan (1857-1933). In 1881, she was married to Michael Delohery (1856-1927). He is the M Delohery of M Delohery and sons. Though it was the Deloherys whom inherited most of Michael Keenan’s wealth, Michael Delohery may have married Catherine already being well-to-do. In any event, we know he must have had some degree of financial backing and/or business acumen, because when National Hat went out of business in the 1890’s, Michael Delohery opened up a new hat factory in the same building.
In any event, Michael Delohery, his wealth and the genealogy of his extended family is another topic worthy of story all its own. For this story, we just need to bring to light the fact that when young Starr wasn’t getting along well at home, his grandparents, Mary and Michael Keenan gave him a place to live and important work to do on their farm. Then, after he became a married man, they helped land a job he was very capable of doing while working for people who would treat him well for many years until his untimely death. These people were his uncle Michael and Aunt Catherine Delohery.
I thought I remember my father telling me many, many years ago we had some family relation to “Nellie” Hellen Delury. I though my Aunt Mary told me the that as well. So far, I’ve found no family relationship. That doesn’t mean anything other than I just haven’t found it. Here is more of the 1927 Danbury Directory showing how the names of the Michael Delohery and the Nellie Delury families were spelled.
If you were at St. Peter’s Cemetery visiting the Deloherys and you look slightly into the distance about 45 degrees to the left, you would see the Delury plot. As far as the two families being related though, I don’t know.
In the 1888 city directory, my great grandfather Charles was shown to be a hatter while still living at 87 ½ Liberty St. So, it is possible both Starr Lathrop and his dad worked for Michael Delohery at one time or another. Of course, 1888 was long before Starr joined the workforce and by the mid 1890’s Charles O and his family had moved to Bethel. So, it is apparent the two didn’t work at M Delohery and sons at the same time
Revisiting Starr’s WWI draft card, there are two other things that pop out at me when looking at it. One is he was registered as being a medium height and his build was registered as “stout.” I can relate to that! The other interesting fact is Starr had blue eyes. To me, as a blue-eyed Lathrop who’s always been told I inherited my eyes from my mother’s side of the family, this is interesting because my mother’s blue eyes were much lighter than mine. So, does this mean I didn’t inherit my eye color from my mother? Not necessarily but in all my life I never knew Starr had blue eyes.
After 1890, we have to move forward all the way to the year 1900 before we see the Charles Lathrop family living on Chestnut St in Bethel. By 1910, the family was living at 115 Grassy Plain St. Bethel. This is where Charles would live for the rest of his life. Charles and Anna owned the house in 1910 albeit with a mortgage.
By the time the 1910 census was taken however, Starr was out on his own. He married Margaret M Keating on January 12, 1910. He moved in with his bride and her mother, whose name was also Margaret Keating, to “South Street Road.” This is the same residence that would in later years be known as 11 Manions Lane. Before it was called was called South Street Road, the area was known as South Bey Limits.
Starr had 5 brothers and 2 sisters. Many of the off springs of his sisters and brothers are friends I’ve known in the area for most of my life. Unfortunately, two of his brothers didn’t live very long. His brother Leo Lathrop was born in 1900 and died in 1910. His brother Everett Lathrop was born in 1902 and died in 1921. In neither case was a cause of death given.
Throughout Starr’s life each census and city directory listed him as a finisher in a hat factory. The finisher was one of the highest paying but most difficult to hold jobs in a hat factory. It was the job most people sought simply because it didn’t require working in a room with fur flying within it all day and there was no need for a finisher to dip his hands in toxic chemicals. It also required no heavy lifting or any type of strenuous work.
On the other hand, it was a high-pressure job! The finisher was the last person to touch the hat before it was put on display. He colored the hat then made any imperfections disappear. Any loose thread or blemish would make the hat non saleable and too many such hats sent to display would cause the finisher to lose his job. The finisher was the detailer of the hat shop and this job called for a meticulous employee.
A good finisher could take a hat in poor condition and make it look stunning by the time he sent it to be displayed. A subpar finisher would send the best examples to display looking drab. The fact he held this position for many years convinces me Starr Lathrop was a superb finisher! I believe this to be true even though he was working for his uncle. I’m not sure if he continued to work for M. Delohery and Sons all his life, but from a few years after he joined the workforce until the time he passed away, he was a “finisher.”
From observing my father and his brothers and sisters and noticing the pride each one of them took in their work and how much attention each of them paid to detail, I now understand they probably all inherited this wonderful trait from their stout, blue-eyed dad, Starr Lathrop.
Charles Ozias Lathrop was the 4th of 8 children and the 2nd of 4 sons. His oldest sibling was Edward Lathrop. This Edward Lathrop lived his adult life in East Orange, NJ. Charles also had a sister Mary Lathrop. (Do these names sound familiar?) Mary married Henry Woodruff. Charles’ sister Estelle Abigail Lathrop Married a man named Albert Bragg and after he died, she married a man, Frederick Hartwell, who was 29 years younger than she was. He actually lived to be 94 years of age and so, died in 1982, This is astounding when you consider he was our Great-Grandfather’s brother-in-Law! Charles’ youngest brother was George Lathrop. He lived most of his life in New Milford but died in Danbury. George had a daughter named (are you ready???) Arline Lathrop. Her birthday was August 31st, one day off from my birthday. You can’t make this stuff up! Arline married Thomas Peter O’Donnell. He was a military man. They lived most of their lives in California. Arline died in 1993, in San Diego at the age of 90. Charles youngest sibling was a sister named Laura. She married Lester Pomeroy. They started quit a large family tree. There are Pomeroys all over the Danbury/New Milford area and many of them are descendants of Laura Lathrop.
I often wondered where Charles middle name “Ozias” came from. Then I found out his mom, Leurenda was the daughter of Dr Ozias and Emila Fox Palmer of Cornwall. That answered my question succinctly! Britannica dot com explains the origin of the name “Ozias” like this: “Uzziah, also spelled Ozias, also called Azariah, or Azarias, in the Old Testament (2 Chronicles 26), son and successor of Amaziah, and king of Judah for 52 years (c. 791–739 bc). … His reign marked the height of Judah’s power. He fought successfully against other nations and exacted tribute from the Ammonites.”
I wondered where the name Starr came from, too. It was a very puzzling question seeing as there was no one in the family I could find whose first or last name was Starr. So, it brings me to this story:
There was book published in 1927 titled “A history of Cornwall, Connecticut: a Typical New England Town.” The man who wrote the book was a Yale Graduate and for a good part, though not all of his life, a resident of Cornwall. He was also the pastor of the Congregational Church in Cornwall which the Lathrops and Palmers apparently belonged to. He surely had a knowledge of some of the members of the Lathrop and Palmer family if not a friendship with them. I believe so because he mentioned some of our family members in his book. He referred to Leurenda’s mother, Emila, as a “verse writer” and talked about Dr Ozias Palmer as being a doctor who cured people by using herbs. I would even go as far as to say this man was a mentor to young Charles Ozias Lathrop. The name of this Congregational minister, author and Yale graduate was Edward Starr. More precisely, his name was Edward Comfort Starr. His book is published under the name of Edward C. Starr.
The following are taken from “A history of Cornwall, Connecticut: a Typical New England Town.”
Another quote from Edward C. Starr’s book
Another exsert from “A history of Cornwall, Connecticut: a Typical New England Town.”
Here is a biographical note taken from the book “A history of Cornwall, Connecticut: a Typical New England Town.”
It is more than just interesting Edward C Starr’s first 3 children are named Charles, Edward and Mabel and Charles Ozias Lathrop’s first 3 children are also named Charles, Edward and Mabel. Also, Edward C. Starr was married in 1878 and then he named his first son Charles. Charles O Lathrop was born in 1860. Did Edward C Starr name his first born after our Great Grandfather? This could well be the case. Of even further interest is the absolutely incredible, almost spooky coincidence, if it was a coincidence, that Starr Lathrop and Margaret Keating were married on January 12, Edward C. Starr’s birthday! There is absolutely no doubt in my mind our Grandfather Starr was named to honor the author of “A history of Cornwall, Connecticut: a Typical New England Town,” Edward C. Starr.
Our grandfather Starr died January 29, 1939 of prostate problems. Because of this problem, he couldn’t empty his bladder and this caused his kidneys to fail. Usually, this type of problem is dealt with rather routinely today and has been for the last several decades. Unfortunately, in 1939 they had no way in advance to determine such a thing was happening to a person let alone curing it if they did know. So, we lost a good man way too soon. He was only 55 when he passed away.
If he had lived until he was 66, I would have met him. If he lived to be 87 in even moderately good health, he would have been at my wedding, and if he lived to be 97, as some people surely do, he would have met at least a couple of his Great-Grandchildren.
However, because he died so young, it seems he lived many, many generations ago when really, he did not. His problem was he just had a terrible draw from the gene pool.
On the other hand, his father Charles O did not have this problem. The story Charles’ grandchildren, my father and my Aunt Mary, have handed down to me is at 79 years of age, Charles Ozias was in excellent health but he got hit by a car, actually a Model T, one Sunday morning while walking home from St. Mary’s Church in Bethel. Though he lived through the accident, he never quite recovered and died several months later.
From the draft card above, you note that at 56 years of age, Charles O was still a hatter. It looks like it says he was a hat sizer. It is hearsay I must admit, but my father told me that in the days Charles (Grandpa, he called him) lived in Betel, he worked for Manion Hat Factory. This hat factory was at the beginning of Grassy Plain St, pretty close to but on the other side of the street from where The Sycamore is. My father told me he, himself, worked there for a while when he was kid, too. The other hearsay accounts I have gotten about Charles is that he was tall, thin, bald and quiet and he always carried a Bible. It almost sounds like he came from a different family.
It is a shame there were no videos or even pictures of most of our long-ago relatives. Because of this, we never really get to know them very well. We find out their birthdates and death dates and that’s about it. I do truly believe we will get to know them someday. However, that is a belief that has fueled countless discussions since the beginning of time.
Skipper
