Orrin Lathrop came from New Hampshire and opened a store on the mill road in 1862, the year the saws started. He sold to the crews on credit against their wages and did well out of Hartwell Timber Co. without ever being on its payroll. Orrin raised most of the money for the chapel, Horace sat on the town council at Town Hall, and Cordelia and other women started the Briarmont Improvement Club at the back of the store.
After the company sale there was no paymaster to settle the crews' accounts on payday, and from 1914 Cordelia, running the store, called in the credit herself. The store stayed in the family until 1971, when Lewis Lathrop closed it. Nobody in the family has sat on the council since Horace's time, and the most recent Lathrop works with his hands: Seth is a carpenter, often on buildings as old as the store.
