Cyrus A. Sulloway (1839 - 1917)
Born at Grafton (NH); died at Washington, D.C.
Lawyer; state and national legislator.
Portrait by Frank French, 1913.
Presented to the State by Grand Army of the Republic Veterans, 1913.

Sulloway studied at Grafton common schools, at Colby (NH) Academy and at Kimball Union Academy. He studied law at Franklin (NH) with Hon. Austin F. Pike, one of the great political figures of that era, and was admitted to the New Hampshire Bar in 1863.

Sulloway tried three times to enlist for military service during the Civil War, but he was rejected because of physical disabilities. [These rejections made Sulloway a champion of disabled war veterans in later years.]

Sulloway began law practice in Manchester (1864). He was elected to the State House of Representatives (1872/3); he served again in the State House of Representatives (1887/93).

Sulloway ran for national office in 1894, and he served in the United States House of Representatives for eleven terms (1895 - 1913; 1915/17). He was defeated for reelection in 1912, when the Republican split between President Taft and former president Theodore Roosevelt allowed the Democrats to win both the national and the New Hampshire elections.

In the U.S. House of Representatives Sulloway became through seniority Chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Justice, and Chairman of the Committee on Invalid Pensions. Supported by injured Civil War veterans, Sulloway commanded substantial votes and was a national figure. (Perhaps oddly, although Sulloway was a strong supporter of the 1898 Spanish-American War, and a strong believer in independence for Cuba, his power base remained Civil War veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic.)

Sulloway was physically a huge man, standing 6'6" in his stocking feet and with broad shoulders and a physique to match. When he lost the 1912 election his G.A.R. supporters determined that they would commemorate his years of service to veterans' causes with a life-sized portrait. In 1913 they contracted with the artist Frank French, who had an office in Manchester (NH), to produce an oil on canvas portrait of Sulloway which measure 96" high x 66" wide without the frame. French told the veterans the price for such a large canvas would be three thousand dollars - a not unreasonable sum in an era when American artists such as Sargent and Chase asked for and got fifteen thousand dollars or more for a portrait of a single figure. The veterans agreed - and then came back saying they could only raise one thousand dollars. The artist reduced his price to one thousand dollars, because his two brothers had served as soldiers and because he admired Sulloway's efforts for the veterans. He even contributed an elaborate gold frame, measuring 112" high times 81" wide, as a further contribution. This frame was valued at one hundred dollars in 1913.

The portrait of Sulloway, "'The Tall Pine of the Merrimack", was scheduled for an elaborate presentation to the State of New Hampshire at the August 1913 Encampment of G.A.R. Veterans, held at The Weirs on Lake Winnepesaukee. With only a few days to go before the presentation, and with the portrait completed, the G.A.R. Veterans came to the artist Frank French and told him they could only pay him five hundred dollars for the work, not one thousand dollars as agreed.

Thunderstruck, Mr. French made an appointment to see Mr. Sulloway about the matter. At their meeting Sulloway showed French a newly received gold watch and chain, with the watch elaborately engraved to Mr. Sulloway. The watch had cost the G.A.R. Veterans five hundred dollars, according to Mr. Sulloway. The merits or demerits of Mr. French's portrait were of no consequence to Mr. Sulloway; the dispute was between the G.A.R. Veterans and Mr. French, and former Congressman Sulloway would not be involved.

The ceremony went off as planned. Frank French had invited a brother he had not seen for fifty-two years to come east for the ceremony; refusing to deliver the painting without payment in full would have been a serious public embarrassment to all concerned. Besides, many years before Congressman Sulloway had helped French's brother Hiram get a job as a rural mail carrier. But the artist's treatment by the Veterans, and by Sulloway, does not deserve praise.

When it came time to hang the portrait of Cyrus Sulloway at the State House, available wall space was limited. With General Dix and Mary Baker Eddy, Sulloway's portrait is too large for any available space, and it is difficult to see the entire portrait from any vantage point.

References: Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress, 1776 - 1989 (1989); Richard Herndon, ed., Men of Progress...in...New Hampshire (1898); Hobart Pillsbury, New Hampshire: A History vol. 2 (1927); anonymous, "The Sulloway Portrait" (in Curatorial files).