George V. N. Lothrop

American politician

George Van Ness Lothrop (August 8, 1817 – July 12, 1897) was a politician in the U. S. state of Michigan, serving as the seventh Michigan Attorney General from 1848 until 1851 and US ambassador to Russia. George studied for one year at Amherst College, and graduated from Brown University in 1838. He started law school at Harvard College, but didn't finish due to ill health. He was a member of Alpha Delta Phi and Phi Beta Kappa. He moved to live on his brother Edwin's farm in Prairie Ronde, Michigan, to recover. In 1843, Lothrop moved to Detroit to finish his law studies, and found success as a lawyer. He is interred Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit.

Lothrop's brother, Edwin H. Lothrop, was Speaker of the Michigan State House of Representatives in 1844. Lothrop's daughter, Emily Anne "Nan" Lothrop (1860–1927), married Baron Barthold Theodorevitch von Hoyningen Huene (1859–1942), a Baltic nobleman and military officer, and their son was the noted fashion photographer George Hoyningen Huene. His daughter Elizabeth, a noted fashion designer, His brother in law, Oliver Ames Jr., was affiliated with the Union Pacific Railroad.

A Michigan historical marker on Charlevoix Avenue in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, commemorates a stand of pine trees that Lothrop planted on the site in 1878. These trees became the "feeder stock" for many of the pine groves that are now widespread in the eastern suburbs of Detroit. The street just across Charlevoix Avenue from the pine plantation is named Lothrop Road in his honor.