Lathrop spent two years at a New York City boarding school before being sent to Germany to attend the University of Bonn.
Shortly after its founding in 1879, Lathrop became one of the earliest members of the Bohemian Club where he was well known for his conversational brilliance and keen wit.
In 1893, on a steamship to Naples, Italy, Lathrop met a young biologist named David Fairchild, whom he persuaded to become a plant explorer.
[5] The Barbour Lathrop Trail at Barro Colorado Island in Panama is named for him in recognition of his early support of the tropical research station.
Lathrop died on May 17, 1927, in Philadelphia, where he had stopped to stay at The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel on his annual trip to San Francisco.