Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/83

 SULLIVAN

SULLIVANT

sentative in the general court; a commissioner to settle the land dispute between New York and Massachusetts; was a member of the executive council in 1787; judge of the probate court of Suffolk county and attorney-general, 1790-1807. He was elected governor of Massachusetts by the Republican party in 1807; was re-elected in 1808, and served until his death. He was appointed by the Presi- dent, a commissioner to settle the line between the United States and British North America. He was a charter member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; a founder of the Massachu- setts Historical society in 1791, and served for many years as its president. The honorary de- gree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Harvard in 1780. He is the author of: Observations on the Oovernment of the United States (1791); The Path to Riches (1793); The Altar of Baal throivn Doiim (1795); Review of the Causes of the French Revolution (1798); History of Land Titles in Mas- sachusetts (1801); and Correspondence icith Col- onel Pickering (1808). See his "Life" by his grandson, Thomas C. Amory (3 vols., 1859). He died in Boston, Mass., Dec. 10, 1808.

SULLIVAN, John, soldier, was born in Ber- wick, Maine, Feb. 17, 1740; son of Owen Sullivan, 1691-1796, who immigrated to America in 1733. He became a well-known lawyer in Durham, N.H.; was active in pre-Revolutionary matters; was major of state militia; a delegate to the Con- tinental congress. May, 1774; was commissioned brigadier-general in the Continental army in June, 1775, and with Gen. Nathanael Greene, com- manded the left wing under Gen. Charles Lee, in the siege of Boston. Upon the evacuation of Boston, he commanded the northern army on the Canadian borders and attacked the British at Three Rivers, but was defeated and joined Wash- ington at New York. He was promoted major- general, and commanded the troops on Long Island, but relinquished his command to Gen. Benjamin Lincoln. He took part in the battles of Long Island; Westchester; commanded the right wing under General Washington, during the passage of the Delaware river and the subse- quent capture of the Hessians at Trenton. He commanded a night expedition on Staten Island, and took about 100 prisoners; commanded the right wing at the battles of Brandy wine and Ger- mantown. Pa., and in 1778 was detailed by Gen- eral Washington, to co-operate with the French fleet under D'Estaing against Newport, R.I. On Aug. 39, 1778, he fought the battle of Butt's Hill, driving the British and Hessians from the field at the bayonet's point. He led an expedition against

the Iroquois Indians and the English, in Northern New York, burning their villages and devastating their lands. On his return to Philadelphia, he resigned his commission and was again a delegate to the Continental congress in 1780. He resumed his law practice in New Hampshire; was presi- dent of the state, 1786-89; a member of the state constitutional convention in 1784; councillor in 1787, and was active in securing the adoption by the state of the U.S. constitution. He was U.S. judge of New Hampshire, 1789-95. The honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Har- vard in 1780. The state government ordered the preparation of his Journals of the Military Expe- ditions against the Six Natio7is in 1779, icith rec- ords of Centennial Celebrations {1887}. He died in Durham, N.H., Jan. 3.3, 1795.

SULLIVAN, Win Van Amberg, senator, was born near W^inona, Miss., Dec. 18, 1857; son of Isaac and Ruth (Clark) Sullivan; grandson of John Sullivan, and great-grandson of General Sullivan, who served under General Greene in the Revolutionary war. He attended the University of Mississippi, 1873-74, and was graduated from Vanderbilt university, Nashville, Tenn., A.B., LL.B. 1875. He practised law at Austin, Miss., and in 1877 removed to Oxford, Miss., where he was elected a member of the board of aldermen, a delegate to the Democratic national convention in 1893; and a member of the Democratic national executive committee in 1896. He was Democratic representative from the second Miss- issippi district in the 55th congress, 1897-98, and upon the death of Senator E.C. Walthall was appointed U.S. senator. May 30, 1898, and was elected by the legislature, January, 1900, U.S. senator, serving, 1898-1901. He was married, Dec. 18, 1900, to Marie, daughter of Dr. Newman of Washington, D.C.

SULLIVANT, William Starling, botanist, was born in Franklinton, Ohio, Jan. 15, 1803; son of Lucas and Sarah (Starling) SuUivant. His father, a Virginian, was appointed by the government surveyor in the Northwestern Territory, and early purchased a large tract of land in Central Ohio. William S. SuUivant attended a private school in Kentucky and Ohio university, and was grad- uated from Yale college, A.B., 1823. Upon the death of liis father in the same year he was obliged to assume charge of the family estate: be- came a member of the Ohio Stage company, and was one of the first directors of the Clinton bank, and for a time its president. His first scientific observations were upon birds, but under the direction of his brother Joseph, a botanist, he began to study first the plants, and subsequently the mosses of central Ohio. He made a botani- cal excursion along the Alleghany mountains from Maryland to Georgia in 1843, preparing and