The town of South Berwick was set off from Berwick in 1814; the First parish is at South Berwick, and recently celebrated its two hundredth anniversary with an elaborate and interesting service. In 1754 the present Berwick was established as the North parish, on petition of 39 freeholders (landowners). This petition for an enabling act to choose parish officers was granted by Governor Shirley and the council, April 17, 1754, the house concurring on the next day. One of the 39 signers to that petition was Master John Sullivan. He helped organize the parish and owned a pew in the meeting-house; later two of his sons owned pews there.
Because Master Sullivan spent the last 40 years of his life in this parish of Berwick, the writers of cyclopedias, biographical dictionaries, and biographies of his sons have taken it for granted that he always lived there, hence say his sons were born there. If Master Sullivan’s sons were like the ordinary sons of men, nobody would care or take the trouble to inquire whether they were born in Maine or New Hampshire. They are not like ordinary sons; they are extraordinary, and that is why New Hampshire should claim the honor which is its due, just as we delight to boast that Webster and Chase, and a host of distinguished men, are the sons of New Hampshire. The Sullivan family is one of the most notable families in the history of New England. There were five sons and one daughter. I will give a brief summary of their lives.
I. Benjamin was born in 1736; he received a thorough education from his father; he enlisted in the British navy and rose to be an officer, when most young men would be only ordinary seamen; he was tall, handsome and brilliant, and walked the decks as one who was born to command. Unfortunately, he and his ship, with all on board, were lost at sea just previous to the Revolution.
II. Daniel, the second son, was born in 1738; after being carefully educated by his father he engaged in mercantile business in Berwick and was very successful; about 1770 he was leader of a company of gentlemen who founded a town at the head of Frenchman’s Bay in eastern Maine; this town is called Sullivan in his honor. When the Revolutionary War commenced he organized and commanded a company which did valiant service for the Patriot cause; he was leader in the defense of Castine against the attacks of the British navy. Captain Sullivan was so conspicuous and efficient in the defense that the officers of the fleet marked him for special revenge; one ship went up from Mt. Desert to the head of Frenchman’s Bay specially to capture the captain; a sortie of marines at midnight went to his house, when all the family were asleep, caught the captain, drove his family out of doors and burned the house and contents; the British officer offered to release him if he would swear allegiance to the king; the captain positively refused to accept freedom on such condition; he was then carried to New York city and confined in a prison ship several months; he was then exchanged but died on his way home, from disease contracted while in prison. He has the reputation of being a man of extraordinary ability, both as a military leader and a business man. Before the war he had acquired large possessions in land, lumber, and sawmills.
III. John, the third son, was born in 1740; after thorough training by his father, he studied law with Judge Livermore in Portsmouth; he commenced practice of the law in Berwick in 1761, and was married about that time. He removed to Durham in 1763, much against the wishes of some of the good people in that town, who feared a lawyer would make trouble. General Sullivan was the first lawyer the town ever had; but the people soon learned to love and respect him; although his office was in Durham, his practice soon extended throughout Rockingham and Strafford counties in New Hampshire and York County in Maine; his success was remarkable.
Before 1775 he was acknowledged as leader at the bar in all of those counties, where John Adams, the second president of the United States, was for several years one of his competitors; not only was he a great lawyer but he also engaged extensively in business, owning several mills and much real estate; at the opening of the war it was estimated he was worth £40,000; most men with such holdings would have hesitated much before rebelling against the king of England; John Sullivan did not hesitate; he took the lead and was commander of the expedition which committed the first overt act of war in the Revolution, by capturing and removing the gunpowder from Fort William and Mary at Newcastle, Dec. 14, 1774; of course you all know the story; the hundred barrels of powder were taken up the river to Durham and hid in various places; a larger part was placed in the cellar of the old church near General Sullivan’s residence; the monument to his memory now stands on the spot.
Some of that powder was used at the battle of Bunker Hill; all of it was used in the Revolutionary War, except a small bottleful which Maj. John Demeritt of Madbury now has, being handed down to him as an inheritance from his ancestors; this capture of the powder was four months before the Lexington and Concord affair.
While attending to his law business and his sawmills and lumbering, he had taken a hand in the local military affairs, and in 1774 was major of the regiment of militia in his section of the province; Governor Wentworth could not persuade him to hold it after the little affair at Fort William and Mary; he was delegate to the first Continental Congress in 1775; he was appointed brigadier-general in the Continental army in 1775; a major-general in 1776; commanded the New Hampshire troops at Germantown and Brandywine; commander-in-chief in the Rhode Island campaign in 1778; commander-in-chief in the great and hazardous expedition against the Six Nations in 1779, which resulted in the overthrow of the most complete organization of the Indians ever effected on this continent. To commemorate this great service of General Sullivan the state of New York has erected costly tablets on the spots where the most important encounters took place.
This was General Sullivan’s closing service in the military operations of the war. I think he should be ranked second only to Greene and Washington as a military leader. His services in civil affairs which immediately followed were quite as valuable and important as his military service. In 1780 he drafted the bill, which the Legislature adopted, to regulate the militia; in 1781 he was delegate in the National Congress; in 1782, ’83 and ’84 he was attorney-general of New Hampshire; he was president of the state in 1786, ’87 and 89; he was the Federal candidate in 1788 but was defeated by John Langdon, the Republican candidate. Sullivan had defeated Langdon in the two years previous, and in the year following; Sullivan was a Washington federalist; he was a presidential elector when Washington was elected the first time; he was president of the convention that adopted the Federal constitution, June 21, 1788, which was the act that established the Federal union; the vote stood 57 in favor to 42 against adoption; it was largely through the influence of General Sullivan that the 57 votes were secured and the Federal union was formed.
September 26, 1789, President Washington appointed him United States district judge for New Hampshire, and he entered upon the duties of that office Dec. 15 of that year; he remained in that office until his death, Jan. 23, 1795, being nearly fifty-five years old, having been born on the 17th of February, 1740. A better American, a more capable, a more useful, or more fearless citizen than John Sullivan, New Hampshire never had.