MySource:Cos1776/Tharp(e) vs. Thorp(e)

[Last accessed 18 Oct 2012]

Tharp(e) vs. Thorp(e)

p 48 -

On Mar 20, 1903, Spencer Roane Tharpe wrote to his cousin Florence Bliss Lyon, "Now as to the change in the spelling of my family name, I can only say that after my mother became a widow she spelled it as we do now. She was a reader of many books, a linguist, and a genealogist. Probably she came to the conclusion the name [Tharp] was derived from the old English common name thorpe, meaning a small village, hamlet."

As a matter of fact, however, the change occurred in two stages, Sally spelled the name Thorp in letters (but not official records) from at least as early as 1841. Her husband seems never to have gone along with this. The THORP version continued to be used through the 1850s by all surviving members of the family. -Spencer himself writing to his elder brother in Oct. 1956 signed the letter "Spencer Thorp" It was this elder brother, Patrick, who began to use Thorpe regularly in all contexts - as in his Jefferson Co. law license application, and soon Spencer and the other orphaned brothers were following Patrick's lead.