My Genealogy Hound

Stephen H. Sullivan, a native of Franklin County, Mo., was born in September, 1849, and is the eldest of the four children of Wylie and Eliza (Teas) Sullivan. He was reared on a farm and received a good common-school education. He helped clean the brush and timber from the site of Sullivan, and dug the first grave in the Buffalo graveyard, near Sullivan, while a prisoner of war, for the body of Samuel King, who was a paroled prisoner from the Union army. The Union soldiers arrested Mr. Sullivan, and soon afterward arrested and killed Mr. King, then compelled our subject, with pointed guns, to dig his friend and neighbor’s grave by himself, this being the first grave in the present public cemetery of Sullivan. The following day, by a petition from friends, Mr. Sullivan was released by the soldiers. He was very young, and never entered the army, but was a Southern sympathizer, and aided that cause. After Price’s raid he went to the Rocky Mountains, and was in various parts of the range, fighting the Indians, digging gold and hunting for about ten years, when he returned to Missouri. In 1875 he married Martha E., daughter of Jamison Bandy, and to this union two children have been born: Nida E. and Stephen H., Jr. After marriage Mr. Sullivan removed to McLennan County, Tex., where he engaged in farming, railroad contracting and stock dealing until 1882, when he returned to Franklin County, Mo., where he is now comfortably situated on a farm of 100 acres. He has served as deputy sheriff, and has held other positions. He is a member of the Masonic Lodge of Sullivan, is a Democrat, and is honored and respected by all who know him.