Jere Stebbins Lathrop, from West Springfield, became a merchant in Northampton and then in Savannah, Georgia, where he remained until the start of the Civil War. He spent summers in his house at 57 Bridge Street in Northampton, which was built in the 1840s from plans in a book of southern architecture brought north by his wife, Elizabeth. The plans for the house (also known as the Lathrop-Butler House) were executed by architect W.F. Pratt, who would design a similar house using the same plans in 1855 for lawyer Osmyn Baker at 78 Pomeroy Terrace. Not wanting to fight a brother in the Confederate army, Lathrop and his family spent the Civil War in Canada, where he was suspected of supplying goods to Southern blockade runners. The Federal government confiscated his house, which was then bought at public auction by Osmyn Baker, who returned it to Lathrop after the war. J. Stebbins Lathrop continued as a business man in Northampton until his death in 1894.