John Sullivan (February 17, 1740 – January 23, 1795) was an American general in the Revolutionary War winning several key battles most notably the Delaware crossing. He was a delegate in the Continental Congress where he signed the Continental Association, the third governor of New Hampshire, and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire.
Sullivan, the third son of American settlers, served as a major general in the Continental Army and as governor (or "president") of New Hampshire. He commanded the Sullivan Expedition in 1779, a scorched earth campaign against the Iroquois towns that had taken up arms against the American revolutionaries. As a member of Congress, Sullivan worked closely with the French ambassador to the United States, the Chevalier de la Luzerne.
Early life and family
Born in Somersworth in the Province of New Hampshire, British America, Sullivan was the third son of Irish settlers from the Beara Peninsula in County Cork, Ireland; his father was a schoolmaster. One of his brothers, James Sullivan, became governor of Massachusetts. Another brother, Benjamin, served in the Royal Navy and died before the American Revolution. A landing party from on February 14, 1781, kidnapped another brother, Captain David Sullivan, who later died of disease.
The father, John Owen ("Eoghan") O'Sullivan was the son of Philip O'Sullivan of Beare of Ardea, Tuosist, minor gentry in penal Ireland and a scion of the O'Sullivan Beare Clan, Ardea Castle line. The Penal Laws reduced them (as Catholics) to the legal status of peasants, although they retained their wealth and social standing. After emigrating to York in the area the Province of Massachusetts Bay that would eventually become the State of Maine, in 1723, the elder John became a Protestant.
In 1760, Sullivan married Lydia Remick Worster of Kittery, now in Maine. John and Lydia Sullivan had six children, Margery, who died in infancy, Lydia, John, James, George (who served as a United States Representative from New Hampshire) and another Margery, who lived only two years.
Career
Sullivan read law with Samuel Livermore of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, between 1758 and 1760. He began the practice of law in 1763 at Berwick, now in Maine, and continued in the practice when he moved to Durham, New Hampshire, in 1764. He annoyed many neighbors in his early career, when he was the only lawyer in town, with numerous suits over foreclosures and was threatened with violence at least twice in 1766. But by 1772, he was firmly established and began work to improve his relations with the community. He also expanded his interests into milling from which he made a substantial income. In 1773, Alexander Scammell joined Sullivan's law practice.
Sullivan built a friendship with the royal governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, who had assumed the office in 1767. In November 1772, Wentworth appointed Sullivan a major in the militia. As the American Revolution grew nearer, Sullivan turned away from Wentworth and began to side more with the Patriots. On May 28, 1773, at the urging of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the New Hampshire Assembly established a committee of correspondence. Hoping to thwart the committee, Wentworth adjourned the Assembly the next day.
On December 16, 1773, colonists in Massachusetts destroyed tea worth 15,000 pounds at the Boston Tea Party to protest taxes under the Tea Act. The British Parliament responded with the Boston Port Act, effective March 21, 1774, which closed the Port of Boston until restitution for the destroyed tea was made to the East India Company. Parliament went on to pass the Massachusetts Government Act, which removed many functions of government from local control, the Quartering Act, which permitted quartering of troops in towns where there was disorder, and the Quebec Act, which established the Catholic religion and French civil law in that province.
Wentworth called a new Assembly, which began meeting on April 7, 1774. On May 13, news of the Boston Port Act reached the Assembly. On May 27, the Assembly provided for only five men and an officer to guard Fort William and Mary at Portsmouth harbor. A new committee of correspondence was selected the next day. By the time Wentworth dissolved the Assembly on June 8, in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the Assembly from sending delegates to a Continental Congress, Sullivan was firmly in favor of supporting the Massachusetts Patriots.
Political and military actions (1774–1775)