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Margaret Brown of County Cork in Ireland had a fierce beauty and a temper to match. She crossed from Ireland in 1723 with her future husband, the tall and wiry Owen O’Sullivan. Together they would have two sons who helped shape the future of their adopted country.
Just how Owen and Margaret came to America is pieced together from several family histories. Owen was heir to his family estate and castle in Ardea in County Kerry on Ireland’s southeast coast. By 1723, however, the castle was in ruins. The O’Sullivans had sided with King James II in his effort to regain the British throne.
When King William of Orange dispatched James to France in the Battle of the Boyne in 1692, any chance of Owen O’Sullivan regaining his ancestral power went with him. Owen was raised and schooled in France.
John and James Sullivan portraits
Owen’s own father died in France, as Owen recalled: “My father died, as they told me, of an ulcer raised in his breast, occasioned by a wound he received in France, where he fought a duel with a French officer; and when he wounded his antagonist, another runned a sword through his back so that the point appeared at his breast.”
Owen O’Sullivan
Upon returning to Ireland after his schooling, Owen O’Sullivan fell in love. But his intended wife was not acceptable to his mother, who refused to consent to the marriage. Owen threatened that if she did not relent, she would never see him again.
With few prospects in Ireland, the 31-year-old Owen set off from Limerick to America. A well-educated Catholic, he arrived and settled in Newburyport, Massachusetts where he was indentured to a Newbury farmer to pay for his voyage.
But Owen had higher expectations. He wrote a letter to the Rev. Samuel Moody of York, Maine. He penned the letter in multiple languages, demonstrating his fluency in Greek and Latin, and expressing his hopes for a better position.
Moody, recognizing Owen’s talents, loaned him money to set himself up as a teacher in Berwick, Maine. For nearly 50 years, he taught in Berwick and Somersworth, N.H.
Margaret Brown
Margaret Brown came from less regal beginnings. Born in County Cork, both her parents died when she was just an infant. Margaret was tenacious. It’s unclear how she got on the same boat as Owen from Ireland to America. She may have pledged her labor to pay for passage, or she may have been a stowaway. Margaret was only nine years old when she crossed to America (Owen was 31).
About ten years later, Owen and Margaret would marry and they dropped the O from their name. Margaret, known as Margery, was a small woman, and one history describes her: “She was very remarkable for her beauty, her vanity, her talents and her energy; and not less remarkable for the violence of her temper.”
Margaret had none of Owen’s sophistication or education, but she had the drive to manage the family farm in Berwick and she imbued her children with ambition while Owen kept school.
The union of the mild, bookish school teacher and the fiery, beautiful stowaway would hit a major pothole in 1743. Overwhelmed by his wife’s demeanor, Owen left his family.
An Abject Apology to Owen O’Sullivan
To try to make up with him, Margaret published an advertisement in the Boston Post:
My dear and loving Husband, Your abrupt departure from me, and forsaking of your wife and tender babes, which I now humbly acknowledge and confess I was greatly, if not wholly the occasion of, by my too rash and unadvised speech and behavior towards you ; for which I now in this public manner humbly ask your forgiveness; and hereby promise upon your return to amend and reform, and by my future loving and obedient carriage towards you, endeavor to make an atonement for my past evil deeds, and manifest to you and the whole world that I am become a new woman, and will prove to you a loving, dutiful and tender wife.
Owen, for his part, never got over his first love in Ireland. Even at an advanced age, the memory of the girl he left behind in Ireland could bring him to tears. True to his word, he never communicated with his mother again.
By the time of their separation, Margaret and Owen O’Sullivan already had two children. They would reunite and eventually have four sons and a daughter. They lived together another 50 years until Owen died at age 104.
Two Governors
Two sons played prominent roles in the American Revolution. John Sullivan apparently took after his mother. A fierce soldier, short and stout, he became a general in the Continental Army and governor of New Hampshire.
James Sullivan, meanwhile, would rely on legal skills to win him fame. James suffered from epilepsy and a bad leg that was injured while working on the family farm as a boy. Nevertheless, he would become a key supporter of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. After the Revolution he was one of Massachusetts’ leading lawyers and was elected governor twice.
Thanks to: The Story of Berwick, The Life of James Sullivan and New Hampshire, An Epitome of Popular Government. This story last updated in 2022.
The beautiful Ethel Reed blazed like a meteor across Boston’s artistic firmament in the 1890s, but after a broken engagement she all but disappeared.
She was one of the first, if not the first, woman to gain prominence as a graphic designer, and she did it by her 18th birthday. At 22, she moved to Europe. By 24, she disappeared from the historical record.
One critic noted Ethel Reed’s work included tangled forms that seem full of secret and illicit meanings. What lurks in those trees, for example?
Ethel Reed
Ethel Reed was born March 13, 1874 in Newburyport, Mass., the daughter of Irish immigrants Edward Eugene Reed and Mary Elizabeth Mahoney. Her father died when she was young, his obituary described him as a “well-known and popular photographer.”
In 1890, mother and daughter moved to Boston, a good choice for aspiring illustrators. The city then was a publishing powerhouse, and the books and newspapers it produced needed decoration.
Ethel studied briefly at the Cowles Art School and apprenticed as a painter of miniatures. She mostly taught herself, however, and didn’t seem to have a plan. Perhaps her addiction to opium, dating from her teens, explains why.
One day a friend saw her doodling and suggested she submit a design to the Sunday Herald, a special edition of the Boston Herald for a women audience. She did, and rocketed to fame.
Her 1895 design, like much of her work, seems whimsical at first glance but then suggests a darker, more provocative theme.
That first illustration for the Sunday Herald includes a demure woman with a swanlike neck — and poppies, which produced the drug Reed used. It also had the caption, “Ladies Want It.” Coming from a sexually active woman, that could mean something other than a newspaper.
An unpublished watercolor by Ethel Reed.
During the 1890s Americans had a mania for posters. Ethel Reed satisfied that appetite, and then some.
In a two-year burst of creativity she gained international fame for her posters, as well as for her illustrations and endpapers.
Gossip columnists found her fascinating, and she emerged as a media celebrity, something she encouraged. She became the most famous woman artist in America.
No Man in Her Room
But she downplayed her sexual adventures. “If anyone caught her with evidence of a man having been in her room, like a top hat on the bed, she would claim that they were artistic props: ‘Obviously, there was no man in my room’,” Angelina Lippert told ARTNews. Lippert organized a show of Reed’s work at Poster House in New York in 2022.
Photograph of Ethel Reed by Fred Holland Day.
Ethel Reed fell in with a crowd of Boston Bohemians that included Ralph Adams Cram, Bertram Goodhue and Fred Holland Day. Day was one of the first to view photography as an art, and he took an arty shot of Ethel Reed as ‘Chloe with leopard skin, berry branches in hair, and shepherd’s crook.’
Ethel Reed by Frances Benjamin Johnston.
She posed for Frances Benjamin Johnston, the first woman photojournalist. Johnston took glamorous shots of Reed in a black dress, which Reed handed out to newspapers.
Love Affairs
Philip Leslie Hale was another Boston Bohemian artist, but a Brahmin as well. Hale was the son of Edward Everett Hale, the brother of Ellen Day Hale, a relative of Nathan Hale and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Phillip Leslie Hale, self-portrait
He and Ethel Reed fell in love and got engaged to be married. His family disapproved, and broke them up. They had planned to honeymoon in Paris. When the engagement fell through, she and her mother sailed for Europe.
In England, she finished up a few commissions for the avant-garde British publication The Yellow Book, co-edited by Aubrey Beardsley, until about 1898. But with few friends and fewer connections in Europe, she couldn’t find work. A former lover offered to help. She replied, “I owe no man anything—neither fidelity nor explanations,” she wrote to him. “I am my own property.”
Then she disappeared. Little was known about her until William Peterson researched her for his book, The Beautiful Poster Lady: A Life of Ethel Reed, published in 2013. He learned she took a series of lovers and bore two children fathered by two of them. Then she married an English army officer named Arthur Warwick. The marriage fell apart quickly. They separated during their honeymoon. In her last years she lived in poverty, addicted to drugs and alcohol. She died in 1912. Her death certificate listed her cause of death as misadventure
Her work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.
This story about Ethel Reed was updated in 2026.
Images: “Ladies want it” By Ethel Reed, b. 1874 – [1], CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84737084. Best Guide to Boston Reed, Ethel, Artist. The best guide to Boston. Boston illustrated for sale here: price 50 cents / Ethel Reed. , None. [Place not identified: publisher not identified, between 1898 and 1900] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014645310/. Ethel Reed by Frances Benjamin Johnston Johnston, Frances Benjamin, photographer. Miss Ethel Reed. , None. [Between 1890 and 1910] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014645308/.
During the American Revolution, Continental currency constantly depreciated in value. That created an opportunity for a group of Massachusetts businessmen to try to swindle a land-rich parson — who happened to be a lot less naive than they thought.
Continental Currency
Rather than tax people to raise funds for the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress issued currency, batch after batch 0f it.
With each new batch of paper notes, however, the currency lost some of its purchasing power. The government did its best to prop it up, but to no avail. It got so bad George Washington complained, “A wagon load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon load of provisions.”
Continental currency
News of a new release of currency reached Massachusetts and troubled a group of businessmen in Bradford. They had a lot of money on hand and feared that it would soon lose much of its value.
Putting their heads together, they decided they would look for someone who hadn’t yet learned of the coming depreciation. They’d then try to foist the currency onto him. The mark they chose was Parson Oliver Noble of Newbury.
The parson had considerable land, including Grasshopper Plains, land useful for growing early crops. But the parson was not nearly as naïve as the men thought.
Sunlight and Shadow: Newbury Marshes by Martin Johnson Heade. National Gallery of Art.
Sarah Anna Emery tells the story in her Reminiscences of a Nonagenarian. Her mother, Sarah Smith Emery, had told her the story first.
Grasshopper Plains Swindle
“Though the land on the plains had all the good qualities the Bradford men had mentioned, everyone at all conversant with that locality knows that there are several acres back from the river consisting of sandy knolls, a somewhat singular conformation, which are almost worthless,” wrote Sarah Anna Emery. Those acres “would scarcely subsist a small number of the insects from which the plains derive their name.
“The Parson at that time had quite a lot of this land which he was desirous to put into a more profitable investment,” she wrote. “He was therefore willing to bargain, not too eager, but to accommodate the gentlemen, after a time the purchase was affected.
“Father Noble, shaking with inward chuckles, received the condemned bills, which before the news of their loss of value became general he disposed of very satisfactorily.”
Bitten
Snow then covered the land, and the men anxious to get rid of their Continental currency took a cursory look. They had “not been particular in enquiries respecting it,” wrote Sarah Anna Emery. “As the spring advanced somehow the story of the sale became bruited about, and the would-be biters were informed that they had been unmercifully bitten. Accordingly they rode down to take a survey of the land. Scarcely liking the lay of it they went with their protest to the Parson.
“Father Noble was all fair and square. He should be sorry to do anything wrong, he was to exchange the next Sunday with Parson Dutch: he would remain in Bradford overnight, and Monday morning the gentlemen might call upon him and talk the matter over ” Accordingly, on Sunday Parson Noble appeared in the pulpit of the Bradford meeting-house.
First Church of Christ in Bradford, Mass.
Pulpit Eloquence
“The morning service passed as usual, but in the afternoon the congregation were favored by a specimen of pulpit eloquence which caused a universal sensation,” she wrote.
Knowing what would happen, the people in the crowded house felt an unusual expectancy, she wrote.
“The psalms and prayer over, the preacher with peculiar emphasis named his text “I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go to see it.”
Parson Noble then lectured the men from the pulpit about knowing what they were buying and the evils of trying to swindle others. Afterward, he passed the day pleasantly with the men who had tried to cheat him. They said not a word about the land.
This story updated in 2026.
Image: First Church of Christ, Bradford, By Fletcher6 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6269477.
Rev. George Whitefield was an early leader of the Methodist movement in England, but he split from it over theological differences. With no pulpit officially assigned to him, he preached from wherever he felt the urge – and he was a master.
George Whitefield, by John Russell. (British National Portrait Gallery)
His sermons in England drew thousands, and his listeners were moved emotionally. They also were moved to generosity when he passed the collection plate.
Whitefield came to the American colonies in 1738 and helped ignite the First Great Awakening. He made 13 trips to the colonies, and died here in Newburyport, Mass., in 1770 at age 55. The cross-eyed preacher was a master of self-promotion, using handbills and public printings of his sermons to drive attendance at his events.
His sermons were a fiery blast of Biblical rhetoric and personal philosophy, and he became a powerful and influential figure, never hesitating to mix politics with religion.
For instance, Whitefield supported slavery. When it was outlawed in the colony of Georgia, he worked to have it made legal again – which was successful in 1751. He used slaves to run his orphanage there, and he used his oratory skills to raise money for the endeavor.
Franklin Softens
Benjamin Franklin took in one of his fundraising sermons, and was surprised to discover that he, and his money, were not beyond the reach of the minister’s charms. In his autobiography he wrote:
“I happened soon after to attend one of his Sermons, in the Course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a Collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my Pocket a Handful of Copper Money, three or four silver Dollars, and five Pistoles in Gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the Coppers. Another Stroke of his Oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the Silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my Pocket wholly into the Collector’s Dish, Gold and all. At this Sermon there was also one of our Club, who being of my Sentiments respecting the Building in Georgia, and suspecting a Collection might be intended, had by Precaution emptied his Pockets before he came from home; towards the Conclusion of the Discourse, however, he felt a strong Desire to give, and applied to a Neighbor who stood near him to borrow some Money for the Purpose. The Application was unfortunately to perhaps the only Man in the Company who had the firmness not to be affected by the Preacher. His Answer was, At any other time, Friend Hopkinson, I would lend to thee freely; but not now; for thee seems to be out of thy right Senses.”
Growing up in Newburyport, Mass., in the 1790s, Sarah Anna Emery’s mother recalled some of the most important events and colorful stories of her age. Among them, she remembered how her sister was attracted to the fiery preacher and decided to defy her father’s wishes to go and hear the Rev. Whitefield.
Hearing George Whitefield
“The fourth parish in Newbury, like its predecessor at the river side, and the parent society at Old town, belonged to what might be termed, the low church wing of Congregationalism. The Rev. William Johnson had been strongly opposed to the more rigid views of some of his brethren in the ministry. He would not admit the renowned Whitefield into his pulpit, and the great revivalist was obliged to preach in a private house.
“I have often heard my great aunt Sara Noyes describe the sensation produced by the eloquent divine. My great grandfather, Deacon John Noyes, fully sympathized in the disapproval evinced by his pastor, and he issued a strict edict forbidding any of his family attending what he termed “those disorderly assemblies.” Aunt Sara, then a girl in her teens, entertained, as was natural, a strong desire to see and hear one whose name was on every tongue, and whose words and their effects were the chief topics of conversation on every side. At last, after much fear and trembling, she mustered courage to make a clandestine attempt to satisfy her curiosity. An evening meeting was to be held at a house in the vicinity, and she determined to brave her father’s displeasure, if her absence was discovered, and go. It was a dark, cheerless night, when, with a throbbing heart, stealing down the stairs and noiselessly opening the door, she ran lightly down the gravel’ walk. Her hand was on the latch of the front gate, when a voice, in an authoritative tone, exclaimed ‘Go back!’ Startled, affrighted, she stopped, turned, and peered on all sides into the darkness.
“No one was in sight. Through the uncurtained window she could see her father and the other members of her family seated around the bright wood fire. Concluding that, owing to the nervous timidity which this disobedience to paternal mandates had caused, imagination had conjured up this voice, with another long and searching look around, she opened the gate. ‘Go back!’ reiterated the voice, even more decidedly than at first, just in her ear.
“What could it mean? Again she stopped, waited, looked and listened. Nothing unusual could be seen, and not a sound could be heard save the wind sighing through the trees. Sara Noyes was a resolute girl, not easily turned from any purpose she had deliberately formed, neither had she much belief in the supernatural. Thrusting back her fears, with a strong will she stilled her throbbing heart, and with a firm step, she again started forward. ‘Go back, go back,’ thundered the voice, in such a powerful and authoritative tone, that, thrilling in every nerve, the astonished girl, completely subdued, hastily turned, and fled into the house. Though she lived to a great age, and could never be reckoned a credulous person, to the last hour of her life she firmly believed that this was a Divine interposition to keep her from evil.”
End Notes
Source: Sarah Anna Emery of Newburyport in 1879 published the memoirs of her mother, Sarah Smith Emery, in her Reminiscences of a Nonagenarian.
With thanks to Jessica Parr, author of the new book, Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon, who corrected several errors.
Professor Parr adds:
George Whitefield believed he could remain part of the Church of England, despite theology and outdoor preaching that was incompatible with Church of England practices.
This is one of a number of miscalculations Whitefield made over the course of his career.
George Whitefield arrived in New England at a critical time when Puritan influences were fading in civil life and the region was becoming more commercial. Plus, New England’s religious culture had always been deeply fractious. The decision (by Benjamin Coleman and others) to invite Whitefield to New England was deeply controversial. Some of the older guard clergy like Charles Chauncey didn’t like the disruption he created. They thought he undermined the authority of the clergy. Christopher Grasso’s book, A Spoken Aristocracy, might be helpful on this point.
But (as I argue in my book) George Whitefield ought to be understood in the context of the contestation over toleration on both sides of the Atlantic.
It’s important not to oversimplify the effect he had on New England as just a matter of “conservative” or “liberal” clergy.
This story was updated in 2026.
Growing up in Newburyport, Massachusetts in the 1790s, Sarah Anna Emery’s mother recalled some of the most important events and colorful stories of her age. But in addition to recalling the major events, she also recorded that the town also had its share of historic characters, complete with foibles, frailties and frivolous natures.
Olde Newbury was full of historic characters who gave the place its life.
Three such gentlemen were Foony Gerrish, the wigmaker, Bumblebee Titcomb. the carpenter. and Rhymer Toppan. She recalled them in her Reminiscences of a Nonagenarian.
Foony Gerrish
“Foony Gerrish, a wig maker, often became the jest of the populace. Though illiterate, he evinced a desire to rank amongst the educated. On one occasion a person in the bar room of the “Wolfe Tavern” perceiving him seemingly intent upon perusing a newspaper which was held bottom upward, inquired, “What is the news, Mr. Gerrish?” Terrible gales,” hurriedly returned the old man, “terrible gales, ships all bottom upwards.” Wishing to be thought a man of business Foony bought a ledger. That morning he sold a wig, for which, much to the purchaser’s astonishment, he declined to take payment, “he would charge it.” At night he detained one of the young clerks in the neighborhood to note it down. Having written the date the young man inquired the name of the debtor. Foony looked puzzled, scratched his head, he “never thought to inquire the name,” but after a moment’s deliberation he added, “Never mind, put it down, one wig to a man that looked like an Amesbury man.” Whether Foony received the price of the wig from this dubiously described individual I am unable to state.
Bubble Bee Titcomb
“Another notoriety was “Bumble Bee Titcomb,” a carpenter by trade. While at work at his bench a bumblebee lighted near his hand. Mr. Titcomb raised his hatchet, ejaculating, “Now, old fellow, your end has come! Say your prayers, for death is nigh. One, two, three strike !” Down went the hatchet, cutting off the end of Mr. Titcomb’s thumb, while the bumblebee, having flown up and stung the end of his nose, buzzed exultantly away through the open door. Ever after the carpenter was known throughout the town as “Bumble Bee Titcomb.”
Rhymer Toppan
“Another of the celebrities of the town was Mr. Enoch Toppan, commonly called “Rhymer Toppan,” as he was never at a loss for a rhyme. One day, at the market house, Mr. James Carey and Mr. Richard Adams laid a wager respecting Mr. Toppan’s instantly returning an answer in rhyme. Mr. Toppan was across the square. From the steps of the market house Mr. Carey sang out, “Mr. Toppan, so they say, buys his meat and never’ll pay.” To which was responded, “Jimmy Carey, if that be true, I’ll always have my meat of you.” Mr. Carey was obliged to “stand treat.”
This story last updated in 2022.
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