My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM L. SULLIVAN. Among the early settlers of Paducah were Abel Sullivan and his wife, Nancy (McDaniel) Sullivan. The former was a native of North Carolina, though of Irish ancestry. He came in boyhood to Kentucky and settled in Muhlenburg County, and there, in 1825, he married Miss McDaniel, a lady of Scotch descent, and in 1831 they removed to Paducah. Abel Sullivan spent many years in Paducah merchandising. He died in Massac County, Ill., 1871, in his eighty-ninth year; his wife survived him until 1872, when she died in Grayville, Ill., at the age of seventy-one years. These parents had three children, of whom William L. is the eldest. He was born on May 6, 1823, in Paducah, and is now the oldest native male resident of the city. With the exception of a very few years, Mr. Sullivan has always been a resident of Paducah, and at the age of fourteen years began his mercantile career, as a salesman in a grocery house. He is now one of the oldest of the Paducah merchants and is the proprietor of a flourishing grocery business. In 1856, in Paducah, he married Miss Mattie Brown. She died of cholera in 1873, leaving one child, Harry Sullivan, now of St. Louis. His present wife, to whom he was married June 17, 1875, was Miss Birdie Ellithorpe. Their union has resulted in the birth of seven children, of whom Maggie, Mattie and Frank are living. Mr. Sullivan is a Knight Templar, in the Masonic order; a member of the A. O. U. W., K. of H. and of the I. O. O. F., and has served the city of Paducah as marshal and tax collector.