Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/82

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STUYVESANT


SULLIVAX


turned on liim. and drove him back to Memphis. He was brevetted major-general. U.S.V., Marcli 13, 186.1, wjis mustered out of the volunteer service, and was promoted colonel of 7th cavalry, U.S.A., May 6. 18G7. He was retired, June 11. ISSfi. He had two sons: James CJarlaiid Stnrgis (1854-70), who was graduated at the U.S. Military academy. lS7.i, and was killed at Little Big Horn river Massacre. June '2'>, 1S76; and Samuel D. Sturgis, who was graduated at the U.S. Military academy in 1884 and entered the artillery. General Sturgis died in .St. Paul. Minn.. Sept. 28, 1889.

STUYVES.ANT, Peter, governor of New York, was Inirn in the province of Friosland, Holland, in 1602: st^n of the Rev. Balthazar Stuyvesant of the Reformed church, who removed to Guelder- land in 1(«7 and died in the same year. Peter Stuyve.sant was liberally educated; enlisted in the Dutch military service, and was commis- sioned director under the West India company of the colony on the island of Cura^oa, of which he was subsequently appointed governor. In 1644, in the attack upon the island of St. Martin, he lost a leg and was obliged to return to Holland for surgical treatment. On July 28, 1646, he took the oath of director-general of New Nether- lands by the ^Vest India company, and arrived at New Amsterdam. May 11, 1647. where he was inaugurated, May 27th, and established a council, a court of justice, and an advisory board consist- ing of nine of the eighteen delegates elected by the colonists. He also issued proclamations reg- ulating the observance of Sunday, the use and sale of intoxicating liquors and the taxation on imports. Within the first two years of his ad- ministration, in consequence of repeated dispute over the boundary question and the jurisdiction of Connecticut and especially by the arbitrary exercise of his authority as governor, he excited intense dissatisfaction among the colonists, who reported their grievances to Holland, but he re-


NEW YORK 1 N )6t)0

fused to answer the summons of the states-gen- eral. He finally arrange<l a boundary line with the English colonists at Hartford. Cf)nn.. in 16r)0. wliich. however, greatly dis|)leased the Dutch, on account of his large cessions of territory, and upon the announcement from Holland of a new


scheme of municipal government for the colony, Feb. 2. 16.')3, he was again recalled, but in view of the impending war with England, the order was countermanded. He dismissed a conven- tion from eight Dutch towns demanding popu- lar reforms in 1653; took possession of the colony of New Sweden (Delaware) in 1655. and imme- diately after was engaged in protecting his own colony against the incursions of the Indians, whom he conciliated by his firm and kindly pol- icy. In 1664, Charles II. having ceded to the Duke of York, liis brother, the tract of land in America including New Netherlands, an English fleet of four war vessels under Capt. Richard Nich- olls appeared in the harbor of New Amsterdam and on August 30. demanded its surrender. After a stubborn resistance Governor Stuyvesant was obliged, Sept. 9, 1664. to sign at his " Bouwery " (Bowery) house the articles of surrender by which Captain Nicholls became governor and the name of the town was changed to New York. He went to Holland in 1665. having been summoned to justify his surrender, but soon after returned to New York, where he resided on his farm until his death. Notwithstanding the turbulent nature of his governorship, he accomplished the right to trade with Brazil in 1648. with Africa in 1652, and with other ports in 1659. and made an un- fruitful attempt to establish a specie currency and a mint in New Amsterdam. He was married to Judith Bayard, sister of Samuel Bayard of Amsterdam. Slie was a remarkable linguist and musician, and upon her death in 1687 bequeathed a fund for the establishing of St. Mark's chapel, New York city. Of their children, Balthazar, born 1647, settled in the West Indies: Nicholas William (1648-1698) married first, Maria, daughter of Wil- lian Beekman. and secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Brant Van Sleclitenliorst. Governor Stuyves- ant died upon his farm outside of New York city, in August, 1682, and was buried at his chapel in " The Bowerie." now the site of St. Mark's church, in the outer wall of which may be found his tombstone. See: Washington Irving's " Knickerbocker's History of New York "; " Life of Stuyvesant" by J. S.C. Abbot (1873), and O'Callaghan's " New Netherland."

SULLIVAN, James, governor of Massachu- setts, was born in Berwick. Maine, April 22, 1744; son of Owen Sullivan, 1696-1791, who came to America in 1723. He studied law with his brother John in Durham, N.H., and practised in Biddeford, Maine. He was appointed king's at- torney- for York county; was a member of the Provincial congress of Massachusetts in 1775. and was judge of the superior court. 1776-82. He was a member of the state constitutional convention, 1779-80. and a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental congress, 1784-85. He was a repre-