Cordelia Lathrop
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| Cordelia Lathrop | |
| Born | 1866, Briarmont |
|---|---|
| Died | 1949, Briarmont |
| Family | The Lathrop Family |
| Occupation | Storekeeper |
Cordelia Lathrop was born in 1866, the year the camp became a town, and grew up in the rooms over her father's store on the mill road. By fifteen she was keeping its accounts.
In 1901 she and other women of the town founded the Briarmont Improvement Club. Elias Hartwell did not want it, and neither did most of the men in Briarmont, her brother Horace among them. The club asked the company for the empty lot beside the mill road, for a garden and a reading room. Hartwell's office answered with a one-line letter saying no. So the women met at the back of the Lathrop store instead, where the reading room began too, on shelves Cordelia had cleared of stock. The Hartwell County Courier gave the first meeting two lines, as "a gathering of ladies at Lathrop's."
Her father died in 1914. Horace had his seat on the council by then and left the counter to her. Since the company sale there had been no paymaster to settle accounts on payday, and some men on the mill road owed the store years of credit. She called it in, which did not make her popular. She never married. When she died in 1949 the store went to her brother's grandson, Lewis, who kept it open for another generation.