My Genealogy Hound

SAMUEL SULLIVAN, farmer; P. O. Tadmor, Montgomery Co., Ohio; born in Clark Co., Ohio, Feb. 11, 1814; was a son of James and Jane (McAlister) Sullivan. He was one of the lineal descendants of the Sullivans who settled Sullivan’s Island, N. C., whence it derives its name. It was on account of his antipathy to slavery that he left the land of his nativity and emigrated to Clark Co., Ohio. Their mode of traveling was quite in contrast with that of the present day. They came through on pack horses, the mother taking two children with her on one horse, and the father one child and their provisions on another, for a distance of 600 miles. He took a lease in the above-named county, and settled on the banks of Mud Creek; at the expiration of his lease, he bought 160 acres, which he improved, but by some mishap lost all. Being, perhaps, past the prime of life, he never made an effort to retrieve his situation, and left his children to accumulate what they could for themselves. He was a minister of the Christian Church for a number of years. Our subject was accustomed to the hardships of frontier life, but received an ordinary education, such as he could obtain in those days by attending school a few months in the winter season; when, in his 17th year, he left home to fight his way through life, working for the first summer at $6.50 per month, and then took a job of clearing, by which he saved 27 cents per day; he soon found that he had not sufficient muscular power to make a living by hard labor, and therefore decided to educate himself; having gone as far as the single rule of three in arithmetic, and modes and tenses of verbs in grammar, the requisite of a teacher in those days, he engaged to teach a term of three months; he entered into an article of agreement to commence at 8 o’clock in the morning, teach every alternate Saturday and received $21 for the term and boarded himself; he followed teaching for six years, gradually increasing his wages until he received $20 per month. Mr. Sullivan has held an office of some kind for a number of years; was Justice of the Peace for twelve years, and is Representative of Miami Co. at the present time; he is not an office seeker, but being a man of real worth, his office is a gift from the people. In 1832, Nov. 4, he married Maria Crook, a sister of Gen. George Crook, the great Indian fighter. The fruits of this union are eleven children— Thomas, James, Theodore, Martha, John, Oliver, George, Florence (deceased), Alice and Lizzie. The eldest son is a graduate of West Point. Although commencing life with nothing, he has educated his family and accumulated property valued at about $100,000.