Visit a little bit of history at the Lathrop House

The quaint structure boasts seven ornamented gables. It represents a classic example of the "steamboat gothic” architecture that was popular back in 1863 when it was built. It was the residence of Benjamin G. Lathrop, who was the first clerk, recorder and assessor of San Mateo County.

Lathrop was born in New Hampshire in 1815, but moved to South Carolina when he was an infant. He grew up as a southerner, so that influenced his views throughout his life. He came to California with the Gold Rush in September of 1849. He settled at Purissima in 1854 and became the proprietor of a hotel, The Sulfur Springs House. The idea of a health spa with medicinal mineral springs was ahead of its time and did not catch on, so Lathrop later sold the property.

Lathrop ran for the county clerk’s job in that first notorious election after our county was formed in 1856. In the fraudulent election, Lathrop lost to Robert Gray, the candidate put up by the gang of crooks trying to control the Peninsula.

Gray was a bartender at Chris Lilly’s Abbey House Saloon. The election was contested and Lathrop brought suit in Judge Fox’s court in June of that year. The election was overturned, and Lathrop did, in fact, become our first county clerk. His job included the duties of recorder and then assessor back in those simpler days.

Lathrop was reelected and held the office until 1862. His brother also served as sheriff from 1865 to 1870. In 1862, Lathrop was elected to the county’s Board of Supervisors and served as its chair. He also was one of the original investors in the San Francisco to San Jose railroad that eventually made its way through Redwood City.

John McDougal, a former governor of California who lived in Belmont, had been part of the attempted take over of the county in 1856. Lathrop accused him of illegal voting after that fiasco, and McDougal countered by saying that Lathrop had trumped up the charges. The two men were bitter enemies. They happened to meet by chance one day in San Francisco, and Lathrop challenged McDougal to a duel, as any proud southerner of that day would probably have done. The challenge was accepted and the usual arrangements were made. It was to be held at a vacant lot on Main Street in downtown Redwood City where the old Diller-Chamberlain Store now stands. Just as the two were stepping up, Sheriff Ackerson arrived on the scene and arrested both men.

They were later released after they promised not to carry on with the fight. Owing to his southern roots, Lathrop was a lifelong supporter of the South and was staunchly pro confederacy during the Civil War times.

His obituary in 1897 said that he had won and lost several fortunes during his lifetime. Even at the time of his death at 82, he was involved in suing Alvinza Hayward for $300,000. He built his house while he was a county supervisor during one of his more affluent periods. A subsequent owner moved the building onto the present site in 1905.

Rediscovering the Peninsula appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal. For more information on this or related topics, visit the San Mateo County History Museum, 750 Middlefield Road, Redwood City.<