My Genealogy Hound

JOHN C. THORPE, a respected and popular farmer and dairyman at Mountain Park, Northampton, was born in his present home March 19, 1832, son of Sherlock D. and Hannah (Allen) Thorpe, the former born on this same farm in 1804, the latter a native of Holyoke.

William Thorpe came from England and settled in the New Haven Colony in Connecticut in 1638. His descendant, Timothy Thorpe, great-grandfather of Mr. Thorpe, was a farmer; and he removed from North Haven, Conn., with his son Collins about one hundred years ago. The latter, who was born about 1776, was a cooper by trade, and on the farm made many barrels, which were in much demand for cider, cider brandy, and vinegar — leading commodities in those days. He died in his sixty-fifth year. The wife of Grandfather Collins Thorpe was- before marriage Rachel Abbott, of Wallingford, Conn. She lived well into the seventies, and now rests in the Holyoke cemetery on Northampton Street beside her husband. They reared four sons and four daughters, of whom the only survivors are: Lyman F., a resident of Holyoke, who is nearly eighty years old; and Delia, now Mrs. Conklin, of New Haven, Conn. Grandfather Thorpe acquired a good deal of property for his time, and gave to each of his children several hundred dollars. He and his wife were exemplary Christians, living up almost to the letter, as well as the spirit, of the law.

Sherlock D. Thorpe devoted his life to agriculture, spending his days on the farm where he was born. The farm contained over one hundred acres at the time of his death, which occurred in 1876, in his seventy-third year. He was twice married. In the early autumn of 1830 he took for his first helpmate Hannah Allen, of Holyoke, daughter of Bishop Allen. Her grandfather, Amos Allen, was a cousin of Ethan Allen, the hero colonel of the Green Mountain Boys, and took an active part in the French and Indian War, being taken prisoner and held by the enemy four years. He also served in the Revolution. Mrs. Thorpe lived to the age of sixty-eight years, dying in 1872. Mrs. Hannah (Allen) Thorpe was the mother of five children, four of whom grew to maturity. Of these, Jane R., wife of Wesson E. Mansfield, of Shelburne Falls, died in 1877, aged about forty, leaving five children; Hettie M., the youngest of the family, wife of Henry M. Bartlett, of Holyoke, died in 1887, in her forty-ninth year, leaving three children; Eugene died in the spring of 1895, at Faribault, Minn., in his sixty-second year, leaving one son, Herbert; Dana W. died in consumption when fifteen years of age; John C. Thorpe is the only survivor of his parents’ family. The second wife of Sherlock D. Thorpe is living on the farm with her step-son.

John C. Thorpe received a grammar school education, attending Wilbraham Academy. He has spent his life on the paternal acres with the exception of two years, during which he was in the grocery business in Holyoke. He has been extensively engaged in dairying for thirty or forty years, at one time keeping sixteen cows and delivering the milk to customers in Holyoke. Mr. Thorpe now keeps but ten cows, and disposes of his milk by wholesale at the door. Mr. Thorpe has sold some sixteen acres of his best arable land, but has left a fine estate of one hundred acres.

On December 16, 1863, he was married to Mary E., daughter of Dr. William G. Smith, of Chicopee. Mrs. Thorpe is a graduate of the Westfield Normal School, and was a teacher for some time previous to her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe are the parents of three sons, namely: William S., a resident of Holyoke, book-keeper for William Whiting & Co., coal dealers; Arthur B., book-keeper and paymaster for the Franklin Paper Company at Holyoke; and Frederick D., draftsman for the Coburn Trolley Company at Holyoke.

Mr. Thorpe votes the Republican ticket, but takes no active part in politics. He and his wife are valued members of the First Congregational Church of Holyoke, the church of his maternal great-grandfather, Amos Allen. His dwelling is a cosey farm cottage built by his father sixty-six years ago.