Attorney-General John Sullivan of Exeter gave the following description of his great-grandfather, Master Sullivan. He says:
I have been told he was a tall, spare man, very mild and gentle, thoughtful and studious, an excellent scholar, but averse to bodily exercise. He was exclusively a teacher.
An aged lady, who remembered seeing him when he was more than a century old, told me her recollection of him, as she saw him at his house one day, was that of a tall, venerable old man in a dressing gown, seated at a table reading a Bible; he wore his hair long on his shoulders.
From what his great-grandson says, and from what I gather from other sources, I draw the conclusion that Master Sullivan was a tall, fine-looking man, who had a lofty and fine spirit. He had an excellent education in his youth, which he enlarged and improved in his later years, making him one of the best scholars in New England in the eighteenth century. He evidently was not satisfied with his lot in life, but never complained. The magnificent success of his sons was the source of great pleasure to him in his old age. He probably was the teacher of more men who took a distinguished part in the Revolution than any other one teacher in New England, and in that way he exercised a powerful influence in shaping the turn of events in that great contest.
Master Sullivan died the first of June, 1796, aged 105 years; his remains were interred in a field on the hillside, about 50 rods from where his house stood in Berwick. His wife died in 1801, and was interred at the same spot. Soon after his death, Gov. James Sullivan had a stone, with suitable inscription, erected there; some years later their great-grandson, Governor Wells of Maine, had the spot enclosed with a substantial iron fence. Thus it remained till October, 1877, when Mr. Ricker, the present owner of the land, got permission to remove the remains to the Sullivan cemetery in Durham, as he wanted to run a new street through his land directly over the grave.
The head of the old grave is now marked by a cherry tree, which stands by the sidewalk. When Mr. Ricker and Mr. Stillings, who lives near there, opened the grave, they found the skull perfect, also the hair and some of the large bones of Master Sullivan; over the forehead a root of the cherry tree had grown so that it half encircled the skull, and had to be cut before the bones could be removed. The skull was very large, with a high forehead, and the hair was long and perfect, being a dark brown mixed with slight sprinkle of gray. The remains had been interred there 81 years.
When Master Sullivan died, some one, presumably his pastor, Rev. Matthew Merriam, wrote an obituary of him, which was published in a Portsmouth paper, The Oracle of the Day. His death occurred on Saturday, June 3, 1796, and the article is in the publication of the week following.
The article is quite long, hence I will give only the substance of it here. The writer says he was extraordinary in his acquirements as a student, his brilliancy of mind, his power as a teacher, and in his influence over the community in which he lived. He taught school till he was 90 years old and then retired, lamenting he could no longer be useful to his fellow-men. He still continued his studies, reading his Bible, his Homer, and his Horace with as keen a relish as he did a half century before. He wrote a good hand till he was 102 years old; he continued his reading till he was 104, when his eyesight failed, but his mental powers remained perfect till seven days before his death, when his speech failed, but he seemed to understand what was said to him till the last hour; when he closed his eyes as in sleep, and his noble soul took its flight.
His health had been remarkably good throughout his long life of more than a century; he was a stranger to pain till a few months before death, when he became subject to cramps and nervous troubles which caused him great distress.
He was active in out-of-door exercise after he had passed the century mark; he would yoke and unyoke his oxen, drive them to the blacksmith shop and get them shod, and work them about the farm; he was able to cut wood for his household fires, and do chores of various sort.