Life
James Sullivan was born on April 22, 1744, the fourth son of John Sullivan and Margery Brown Sullivan, in Berwick, in a part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay that is now the state of Maine. Sullivan's father was from County Limerick, and his mother was a child on board the ship he came over on whom he later wooed and wed. The elder Sullivan was a schoolteacher and farmer in Berwick. Sullivan was educated at home, and any prospects for military service were dashed when his foot was crushed in a childhood accident. He was also afflicted with epilepsy while relatively young, and suffered generally mild seizures (but sometimes lasting several hours) for the rest of his life. While convalescing from his foot injury he read a great deal, learning Latin and the classics. His elder brother John, who was studying law, was instructed to supply his brother with law books and training. Sullivan studied law in his brother's law practice in Durham, New Hampshire, and was eventually admitted to the bar in Massachusetts, where he established a practice first in Georgetown, then shortly afterward in Biddeford, where he was the town's first resident lawyer. In 1768 he married Hetty Odiorne, the daughter of a successful Portsmouth, New Hampshire merchant.
Sullivan's law practice flourished, and by the time he was 30, he was one of York County's leading citizens. For his services as a lawyer defending land claims, in 1773 Sullivan was offered a portion within the tract. He accepted, and the property was organized as Limerick Plantation, named after County Limerick, Ireland, the birthplace of his father. In 1775 he helped settle the town (personally assisting in the clearing of land), which on March 6, 1787 would be incorporated as the town of Limerick.
Read more about this topic: James Sullivan (governor)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“I have spent so long erecting partitions around the part of me that writes—learning how to close the door on it when ordinary life intervenes, how to close the door on ordinary life when it’s time to start writing again—that I’m not sure I could fit the two parts of me back together now.”
—Anne Tyler (b. 1941)
“Death does determine life.... Once life is finished it acquires a sense; up to that point it has not got a sense; its sense is suspended and therefore ambiguous. However, to be sincere I must add that for me death is important only if it is not justified and rationalized by reason. For me death is the maximum of epicness and death.”
—Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975)