/Kerry area and his mother was a child aboard the ship on which they came over. When she was older he wooed and wed her. 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. 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. He supplemented his legal work by acting as an agent for Boston-based merchant interests, including John Hancock, one of Boston's wealthiest men. For his services as a lawyer defending land claims, in 1773 Sullivan was offered a tract within one of the claims he defended. He accepted, and the property was organized as Limerick Plantation, named after 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. James Sullivan is regarded as a descendant of the O'Sullivan Beare clan, from the Beara Peninsula of the Cork and Kerry area. According to John Adams, Sullivan used his financial rewards to invest in local real estate, including farmlands and mills. Revolution Sullivan was an early and outspoken opponent of British colonial policies leading to the revolution. He was elected to the provincial assembly in 1774. When it first met in June, Sullivan was a leader in calling for a Continental Congress. When Governor Thomas Gage indefinitely delayed the next meeting of the assembly the following October, its members met anyway, establishing the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. This body exercised de facto control over Massachusetts during the early years of