Santa Cruz County Biographies

JOHN T. SULLIVAN

Submitted by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
        John T. Sullivan is the proprietor of the Sea Beach Hotel in Santa Cruz. 
His life has been full of vicissitudes. With him Dame Fortune has been as 
capricious as some maidens frequently are. He was born in County Meath, Ireland, 
March 3, 1843.  His mother was Welsh, and his ancestors on his father's side are 
conspicuous in the annals of the United States Government, some of them having 
immigrated to this country in early colonial days. He is a lineal descendant of 
General John Sullivan, the first governor of Vermont, and a brother of General 
Sullivan was the second governor of Massachusetts. It was the mother of General 
Sullivan who said, when asked what she was going to do in America when she left 
Ireland, "I am going to furnish governors for the colonies." Descendants of this 
illustrious family to the number of several hundred have become governors, 
supreme judges, and congressmen, having on their roll such names as Sunset Cox 
and Dewitt Clinton.
        The history of Mr. Sullivan's early life is full of sadness and pathos. 
It is so apparent and evident that childhood is the only truly happy period of 
earth existence, that the heart is naturally touched by the recital of an 
experience in which there were no happy childhood days. Mr. Sullivan's earliest 
recollection is of his father, who was connected with Freeman's Journal, 
published in Dublin, dying in a British prison for his too warm espousal of the 
Irish cause. The next chapter in his memory ended with his mother dying shortly 
afterwards of a broken heart. He was not more than five years old at this time, 
and with two older sisters was sent to the United States to a prot�g� of his 
father's, with whom he lived for a time at Brooklyn, but failed to find a home. 
He was treated with indifference, until he attracted the attention of a farmer 
and manufacturer by the name of Sylvanus Dickinson, who lived in Hadley, 
Massachusetts. He went to live with the Dickinson family, remaining with them 
until he was thirteen years old, being treated as a son. While here he obtained 
a meager education in the public schools of Hadley, attending school for three 
winters. He subsequently went to South Carolina, where he remained until the 
beginning of the Civil War.
        When the war broke out he went North and enlisted in the Tenth 
Massachusetts Infantry, but subsequently enlisted and went to the front with the 
First Massachusetts Cavalry. He was at the front for two years and participated 
in the battles, among others, of Popotaligo, Morris Island, second battle of 
Bull Run, Poolsville, Frederick City, and Antietam. At the latter battle he was 
shot through the arm and had his leg fractured, and was discharged from service 
on account of disability. During the war he was twice prisoner, but escaped each 
time. Most of the time he was in the service he was in South Carolina, in a 
country with which he was familiar, and for that reason was called upon to do a 
great deal of scouting duty. Mr. Sullivan, like the race from which he is 
descended,, is very patriotic and is filled with an ever-burning enthusiasm and 
love for American institutions. He considers it the greatest privilege of his 
life that he was permitted to assist in the preservation of the Union.
        February 28, 1866, he was married to Miss Sarah A. Smith, a member of 
one of the oldest families of Hadley, Massachusetts.  He then went to South 
Carolina as superintendent of the Sea Island Cotton Company. The company failed 
and he engaged in merchandising and cotton planting, and also had an interest in 
a hotel. He supplied planters largely from his store, during a period followed 
by crop failure, which broke him up. He went back to New York and worked for a 
railroad company, and later took charge of the Tribune Association Experimental 
Farm, started at that time, and superintended it for a year. In 1870 he went 
into the New York post office as a porter, and a few months later was promoted 
to a clerkship, and in nine months had the superintendency of the newspaper 
department. He remained here for fourteen years, having charge most of the time 
of three hundred men.
        An anecdote connected with his appointment and the superintendency of a 
department in the New York post office will be interesting here and will 
illustrate a leading trait of Sullivan's character. After he had been in the 
post office several months, a new department was created. There were twelve or 
fifteen applicants for the position of superintendent. After the department had 
been created, the division superintendent informed the postmaster that, as he 
must be responsible for the man who had charge of that department, he thought he 
ought to be permitted to make the appointments. To this the postmaster agreed, 
and, handing him the list of applicants, said, "You may make your selection."
        The division superintendent replied, "I do not want any of those 
fellows; there is a new man down there on the floor working as clerk at one of 
the tables whom I want for the position." As might have been expected, this 
caused a vigorous protest from a number of the older employ�s and their 
political backers. Among other things it was urged that Mr. Sullivan had not 
been true to the Republican party and was supporting Horace Greeley for the 
presidency. When the investigation took place, one of the clerks who worked 
alongside of Mr. Sullivan testified that Mr. Sullivan was supporting Greeley, 
and had made the avowal that he would vote for him if it was the only vote the 
sage of the Tribune got in the United States. Mr. Sullivan had known Greeley 
personally for years, and highly esteemed him, and had remarked to his 
fellow-clerks, "I presume I will get my walking papers for it, but I have never 
gone back on a friend, and I am going to vote for Mr. Greeley, and work for him 
until the polls close." When this testimony was introduced, Postmaster James 
declined to hear any more. "That will do," he said; "any man who can be loyal to 
his friends when he has every reason to believe that it will be at the expense 
of his situation, can be safely trusted to perform any duty assigned to him." He 
got the appointment.
        He left the post office in 1884 and came to California, arriving in 
September of that year, intending to go into the fruit business.
 
"But the best-laid plans o' mice and men gang aft a-gley."
 
        He came to Santa Cruz in February, 1885, and started a boarding house at 
the Bay State cottages, Beach Hill, He took up a pre-emption claim in Monterey 
County and was thus engaged between his interests in Santa Cruz and his farm 
when Mr. D. K. Abeel secured rooms at his boarding house and formed his 
acquaintance. Mr. Abeel was a capitalist, and foresaw the advantages and profits 
to be derived from a hotel where the Sea Beach is now situated. He purchased  
the property, the old Douglass House, and leased it to Mr. Sullivan, and in 1889 
built the extensive addition, which has made the Sea Beach Hotel the largest in 
Santa Cruz, and, with Mr. Sullivan's management, one of the most popular in the 
State.
        Mr. Sullivan is numbered among the successful hotel men in California. 
He has one of the best houses, situated on one of the finest sites it is 
possible to obtain for a hotel. During the season of 1891 the house has been 
filled, and more than a thousand people turned away because of a lack of 
accommodations. Mr. Sullivan has valuable assistance in his wife and daughters, 
whose management and care exercised in many departments of the hotel have not 
only prevented many leaks but have contributed in no small degree to the 
popularity and prestige of the house.
        Mr. Sullivan's family consists of his wife and three daughters. The 
eldest, Annie, was born in South Carolina, the second, Minnie, at Croton 
Landing, N. Y., and the third, Mabel, at Brooklyn. There was another daughter, 
who died in infancy. Mr. Sullivan is a member of the Knights Templar and 
subordinate lodges. He also belongs to the G. A. R., and is a special aid on the 
Commander-in-Chief's staff.
 
HISTORY OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.-  E. S. Harrison, 
Pacific Press Publ. Co., San Francisco, 1891