letter excerpt The Dix Family Archive
ClemensDixsullivan
The Sullivans
ChronologyOld Letters

 

Chronology: 1778 to 1952

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In 1847 Timothy and wife with three of their children - Timothy Jr. and two others - emigrated to Canada, landing at Montreal.

They had left the two youngest children Anne and Daniel with relatives at Meenygorman, intending to have them come over later with others and join the family as soon as they got located.

However, typhus fever was epidemic at Montreal on their arrival and soon Timothy was stricken and died sometime during the year 1848 leaving his widow and three children who were with them at Montreal and the two (Anne and Daniel) who had been left behind in Ireland.

The Irish relatives, having had no word from Timothy or his wife, made many written inquiries in endeavor to find the cause of their silence. Eventually the relatives were informed of the fact of Timothy's death in 1848, but they were unable to locate the widow and three children; so they were reluctantly forced to conclude that both Timothy and wife and the children had all become victims of the typhus epidemic.

Letters to this effect from their Irish relatives having reached Daniel Sullivan (our granduncle) at Alexandria, Louisiana, early in 1850, he at once set sail for Ireland. On arriving there, he arranged to take charge of Anne and Daniel, the two youngest children of his deceased brother Timothy, who had been left behind with relatives at Meenygorman. He accordingly brought them back with him to his home in Alexandria, Louisiana, and formally adopted them, since it was then believed they had been orphaned by the death of both parents at Montreal in 1848.

It was not until ten years later in the year 1858 that word finally came from Ellen Sullivan, widow of Timothy Sullivan of Montreal, and with tragic results as shown by the obituary notice of the death of her daughter Anne at the Ursuline Convent at Galveston, Texas, on July 16, 1858.

Anne Sullivan - (our aunt) - daughter of Timothy and Ellen Sullivan, was born in Meenygorman, Ireland, June 19, 1842. Hence she was eight years old in 1850 when she and her brother Daniel, then six years of age, came with their Uncle Daniel to his home in Alexandria, Louisiana. There she remained until 1857 when she was entered as a boarding student at the Ursuline Nuns Convent at Galveston, Texas.

A Copy of Anne Sullivan's Irish Baptismal Certificate is as follows:

Church of the Immaculate Conception
Extract from the Baptismal Registry of the Parish of New Market, County Cork, Ireland.
Baptized on the 19th of June, in the year of Our Lord, 1842, according to the Rites of the Roman Catholic Church, by the Rev. D. Murray, C.C.
Anne, daughter of Timothy Sullivan and Ellen Sullivan
James Neal)
Mary Leair) Sponsors.
Signature of Clergyman - Michael P. Norris, Adm.
Given at New Market on this the 1st day of December 1907.
Omnibus Quorum Interest

The above is a true copy.

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Copyright 2002 Gabriel Brooke, (website). Transcription and editing: John Thomas, (website). Design and production: Marc Kundmann, (website).