Michael, Bob Sullivan's grandfather, grew up in
Saratoga Springs, New York. He later
moved to Marshall, Minnesota and opened a
lumber business that was very successful.
Other European immigrants would give him
letters of recommendation/reference from
Bishop John Ireland (also a Famine immigrant
and said to have been the
same age as Michael). With this
reference, Michael would lend them lumber,
nails, shingles, windows, doors etc. for
them to get started with a house and barn.
He did this for the good of the community.
He also set up pharmacists and other small
businesses.
The pharmacist told Emmet
(Michael's son and Bob Sullivan's father)
during a visit that Michael said "Doctors
will move to stay in a town where they can
get prescriptions filled. Can you do
this?" The pharmacist said, "Yes!"
Michael then set him up as the druggist.
Picture of
Michael in his later years and a Sullivan
heirloom rocker brought by relatives to
Saratoga Springs in the 1820's.
Third
picture is of Michael
taken in Little Rock,
Arkansan, possibly when
in his mid-thirties. "I
remember hearing my dad
tell of how Michael
liked to go to Arkansas
for the horse races."
Grandson Robert Emmett
Sullivan
Marshall,
Minnesota, December 1900
M.
Sullivan, lumber and building materials of
all kinds, sash, doors, blinds, moldings,
paper, brick, lime, cement and tiling. A
large and complete line in every respect is
carried and sold at right prices.
Estimates furnished on application.
M.
Sullivan was born in New York State, and
came West in 1868, and settled in Winona, of
this state where he was engaged in the
lumber business for 11 years, and in 1879
came to Marshall and purchased a half
interest in the firm of Youmans Bros. &
Hodges. In July of the present year he
bought out his partners’ interest, thus
controlled the whole plant. Since
coming to Marshall he has been
identified with everything pertaining to the
welfare of the village, and was its
president for eight successive years.
He received the appointment as Postmaster
under the first term of the Cleveland
administration, serving acceptably for four
years, and for the past twenty years has
been a member of the of the Board of
Education, and is now serving as it’s
president. In financial circles he is
a member of the board of directors of the
Lyon County National Bank. In politics
he is a Democrat and with his varied and
manifold duties is never too busy to say a
good word for Marshall and Lyon county.
Article sent to Bob Sullivan
by the by the Lyon County Historical
Society.
Father
William Joseph Stewart (1905), pastor of St.
Edward's Catholic Church of Minnesota since
September 10, 1905, is a native of Ireland.
He was born in Cashel, County Tipperary, July
14, 1875, and is the eldest son of Jamieson and
Mary (Maloughney) Stewart, the former of which
is deceased, and the later still residing at the
old home in Ireland.
Bishop John Ireland
-Contemporary
and friend of Michael's, was
third bishop and first archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota.
Click here for a more personal history of
Bishop Ireland that connects Ireland's work in Minnesota
to Michael's generousity in supporting the hundreds
of Irish immigrants that Bishop Ireland sent to him for
building materials. Bishop Ireland was said to
have immigrated with his parents to the U.S. in 1849
which would place the event during the famine years
which struck his native Kilkenney, County Kerry, very
hard. Having emigrated in 1849, Bishop Ireland
and Michael (who emigrated in 1849 as well) shared
common experiences of the famine years and resettlement
in the United States.
His
Naturalization records are most likely one of these
three:
February 22, 1852
Michael Sullivan Witnessed by: Joseph Baucos (?), David
Hunter.
February 22,
1859 Michael O'Sullivan Witnessed by: Patrick Carroll,
James Burns
(I think these first
two must be OUR Michael Sullivan. He was gone from the New
York by that time.)
September 26, 1872
Michael Sullivan Witnessed by: John Foley, John Connor
