LOTHROP, George Van Mess, lawyer, born in Easton, Bristol County, Massachusetts, 8 August, 1817. He was graduated at Brown in 1838, and entered the Harvard law-school, but on account of ill health joined his brother in 1839 on a farm near Schoolcraft, Michigan In March, 1843, he went to Detroit, completed his preparation for the bar, and began practice in the following spring. He was attorney-general of Michigan in 1848-'51, recorder of the city in 1851-'3, an unsuccessful candidate for congress in 1856 and 1860, and in 1860 a delegate to the Democratic national convention in Charleston, South Carolina, where he supported the nomination of Stephen A. Douglas. He was also nominated three times by the Democratic party for United States senator, and was a delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1867. From 1854 till 1880, when he resigned, he was general counsel for the Michigan Central railroad company. In May, 1885, he was appointed United States minister to Russia.