74 FACTS RELATING TO GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 



THE REV. DR. LOTHROFS REMINISCENCES. 



During the year 1888 there was privately printed a small 

 edition of a book entitled " Some Reminiscences of the Life 

 of Samuel Kirkland Lothrop," which gives in an easy and 

 graceful style the recollections of the reverend author. Mr. 

 Charles Robinson, who is mentioned in the following extract 

 from the volume, for a short time in 1818 taught a school at 

 Cambridge, which young Lothrop attended. He afterward 

 was the settled minister of Groton. 



I was sorry to lose Mr. Robinson. He was an excellent teacher, 

 and our little school under him was a good and pleasant one. Two 

 experiences with him afterwards I may as well relate here. He 

 studied Divinity and was settled at Groton, where he had a suc- 

 cessful ministry of fifteen or eighteen years, resigning about 1840. 

 At this time I had been four years at Brattle Street. Our church 

 was invited to the council to install his successor, and I went up 

 with Mr. William Lawrence, a native of Groton, as my delegate. 

 Robinson made the installing prayer, and he made it forty-five 

 minutes long, — spreading before the Lord the whole history of the 

 town and the church, as well as offering at the close some earnest 

 petitions in behalf of the new minister. During the prayer I was 

 in the front pew, standing next to Andrew P. Peabody, then of 

 Portsmouth. He was to preach the sermon (it was shorter than the 

 prayer), and as he was passing me to go up to the pulpit, he said, 

 "If Brother Robinson had begun where he left off, and remembered 

 that it may be taken for granted that God knows some things, he 

 would have done better." 



After leaving Groton Mr. Robinson was settled at Medfield, and 

 in the summer of 1S45 we had some correspondence about an 

 exchange. He proposed one Sunday, which I declined, proposing 

 another, if I had a favorable answer from him. I heard nothing ; 

 but on that Sunday, the moment I entered my own church I saw a 

 head in the pulpit, and on reaching the top of the pulpit stairs found 

 it was Mr. Robinson, who said rather sharply, "How is this, sir? 

 Why are you not at Medfield? " " Because I did not hear from you," 

 I answered, " There was nothing said in your note about hearing 

 from me," was his reply. " I think there was," I said ; " at any rate, 



