Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/32

20 wooden fence. The house reminds me of the Langdon mansion, but it is not as grand. A porch shelters the front door, over which clambers a Virginia creeper. The street here runs north and south, so that the front of the house faces the west.

Entering the mansion, I found myself in a fine, spacious hall, running through the house, about ten feet in width, with a grand staircase leading to the upper floors, having handsomely carved and turned newels and rails. The ceiling of this room, like all the others on this floor, is about nine feet high, and the walls are wainscoted throughout. On the right of the hall is the sitting-room, and on the left the parlor. The latter room is remarkable for its fine proportions, its grand old fireplace, and its ornamental paneling. In the old days it must have been the grand room of the house. Most of the rooms remain the same as when their illustrious occupant was alive. The house was built in 1769; and there are about fourteen rooms in it, including the ell.

Before we look around any farther, we will glance at the distinguished founder and some of his friends whom he welcomed here with unstinted hospitality. He was a great man in his day, one of the dies majores of the Revolutionary period, the days when there were giants in the land. As a brilliant lawyer, as a successful and gallant soldier, as the efficient chief magistrate of our State, John Sullivan held no humble place before the nation's eyes.

The Sullivans were descended from a family that had for centuries made itself conspicuous in Ireland by its hostility to English rule. The grandfather of the New Hampshire Sullivans was Major Philip O'Sullivan, of Ardra, an officer in the Irish army during the siege of Limerick. His son John, born at Limerick in 1692, was one of the company that in 1723 emigrated from Ireland and settled the town of Belfast, in Maine. At this place he hired a saw-mill and went to work. Two or three years afterwards another vessel of Irish emigrants landed at Belfast. On board was a blooming young damsel, who, after the custom of those days, had agreed with the ship-master to be bound out at service in the colonies in payment of her passage across the Atlantic. She was bright and witty, with a mind of a rough but noble cast. During the voyage over, a fellow passenger jocosely asked her what she expected to do when she arrived in the colonies. "Do?" answered she, with true Celtic wit, "why, raise governors for thim." Sullivan saw the girl as she landed, and struck with her beauty made a bargain with the captain, paying her passage in shingles. He wooed and won her, and the Irish girl entered upon the initiatory steps to make good her declaration.

Immediately after his marriage Mr. Sullivan settled on a farm in Berwick, and began clearing it for the plow. Cheered by the love of his enterprising wife, and determined to achieve success, if patient toil and industry could accomplish it, he worked hard, and was rewarded for his labor by seeing fertile fields rise around him where but a few years before lay the unbroken wilderness. Being a man of good education, he taught school in the winter at Berwick. He was the father of four brave sons, John, James, Daniel, and Eben Sullivan.

John, the eldest of the brothers, was born in 1740. At the age of twelve he assisted his father on the farm. He was a sturdy boy, of great independence of character, and under his father's guidance was well trained when he reached the age of eighteen, both intellectually and physically. His father destined him for the bar, but was too poor to pay the expenses of a collegiate education, so the boy was sent to Judge Samuel Livermore, who at that time was residing in Portsmouth. In a coarse garb he knocked at Livermore's house and inquired for the squire.