Lots of stuff on the internet about my 7th Great Grandparents, maternal grandmothers side. Master Owen (John) SULLIVAN (1691-1795) and Margery BROWNE (1714-1801). Master SULLIVAN is the longest lived ancestor I am aware of, living to be 104. One of their great grandsons, Thomas Coffin Amory (who is a cousin of both of my grandmothers), collected letters about the family from many different descendants. Here’s a sampling: “I intimated to you that the cause of your great-grandfather leaving Ireland was not generally known. It was on account of his mother’s treatment toward him. She is said to have been high-spirited and proud. His dissatisfaction proceeded from this cause. He became attached to a lady of beauty and accomplishment, but of a family not equal to his own in respectability and wealth. His mother, who was a widow, opposed the marriage, and warned him that if he disobeyed her in this particular he should derive no aid from her hand nor any advantage from her property. He desired her to reflect for a week before she should confirm her resolution, and told her that, if she then persisted in her opposition to his marriage, he would go where she should never see him nor hear from him again. At the expiration of the period mentioned she persisted in her opposition. He carried his threat into execution.” … This respected and extraordinary character was born in the village of Ardea in the County of Kerry and Kingdom of Ireland. [Until] he was ninety he was most part of this time employed in teaching public and private schools; and perhaps but few persons ever diffused so much useful learning.” … “Beside farm-work and school-teaching John Sullivan had a third resource, the writing of deeds, which brought him it seems ten shillings apiece. He made money enough at some time to pay his debt to Dr. Moody, and to ransom from the York farmhouse while she was still a child his little fellow redemptioner, Margery Brown, taking the charge of her on himself. There is a story -- which we will merely mention as we cannot at this moment find where we read it, and are not sure that it is authentic -- of John Sullivan as an old man playfully rebuking his wife for impatience with a neighbour who wanted to borrow some of her household goods, by reminding here that he had one bought her.” … His wife is said to have been a small woman. She was very remarkable for her beauty, her vanity, her talents and energy, and, if tradition be true, not less remarkable for the violence of her temper. The circumstances attending the marriage of Master Sullivan and Margaret Browne were related to the present writer and George Sullivan, great-grandson of General Sullivan, more than twenty years ago, by an elderly lady of Berwick. She said that, when a young maiden living with her father in that same house where we were, the aged couple, our ancestors, overtaken by a storm on their way home from church, came in to make a visit and wait till the storm should abate. The chat taking that direction, Master Sullivan, in the presence of his wife and in that very room where we were seated, gave them an account of hs own wooing. He told them that Margaret grew into womanhood with great personal attractions, and that a visitor at his house, after some conversation with her at the well, fascinated by her beauty, expressed his wish to marry her. She reported his proposal to Mr. Sullivan, who finding that she had no inclination to favor his suit, communicated her decision to her suitor, probably in the kindest manner that he could. He soon afterwards discovered that she would have no objection to become his own wife, and their marriage, to judge from the age of their children, took place about 1735”, when he was about 44 and she was about 21. … “The impression I have gathered from the old people respected Master Sullivan is that he was an amiable and worthy man, wanting in energy, who pursued his humble yet useful occupation giving general satisfaction, a good citizen, and an honest man. Such a man would ordinarily pass away without occasioning any special remarks, and such would probably have been the case with him had it not been that two of his sons so justly arrived at eminence. The contrast between the humble pretensions of the parents and the honourable distinction of the sons caused a frequent reference to the parents, and made their character, circumstances, and position in life a subject of common conversation and generally known . . . Master Sullivans wife was as well known as he was, and when reference was made to the sons, she was more frequently alluded to. She possessed great personal beauty and force of character, and to her influence as well as to that of their father may be ascribed the energy and vigor which made their children distinguished. She has been uniformly represented as a woman of considerable native strength of mind, yet entirely uncultivated, having the strong passions common to her countrywomen - of which some are good and some bad – wholly unsubdued by habit. These marked traits of character show a wider contrast between her and her two sons than between them and their father, and furnished a theme for remark, with anecdotes not a few, brought up whenever allusion was made to the family. That she was a masculine energetic woman, with the resolution of a man, there is no doubt. That she performed outdoor labour in the field suitable only to men, in order that her husband might not be diverted from his occupation of teaching, was recently told me as coming from herself in presence of my informant, one of the few who now survive to remember her.” … files.usgwarchives.net/me/york/berwick/sullivan.txt oldberwick.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=518&Itemid=285
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 06:37:13 +0000
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