Silliman Family

THE SILLIMAN FAMILY Pennsylvania and South Carolina Lines BY ROBERT B. SILLIMAN Executive Vice Presi.dent, Silliman University DUMAGUE'l'E CITY. PHILIPPINES SILLIMAN UNIVERSITY PRESS 1966 Preface The name SILLIMAN is believed to be of Anglo-Saxon origin. Lower's Di,ctionanJ of Family Names of the United Kingdom, published in London bears this out in the following statement (p. 315): ''The Anglo-Saxon syl. or sul. a plow, is retained in the Wiltshire pronunciation aylla. Hence Silliman (or Sillyman) is probably ploughman." Another writer, Bardsley, Our English Surnames, points out that the name Sillyman originally had a far different mean ing than it would have today, since the word "silly" had a very different meaning than it has now. Bardsley points out that a "silly virgin" with Spenser was no foolish maiden, and the "silly" woman, in the language of Shakespeare, was merely an unprotected or innocent female. A further quotation by Bards ley is from Foxe's "Maryology" which describes the martyrdom of a seven-year-old child. "The Captain... committed the silly soul, this blessed babe, to prison." Bardsley concludes: ''the name Sillyman or Silliman ( as it is consistently spelled today) is but a pleasant memorial of the earlier usage of the word." On the other hand it is possible that the name Silliman may be of Italian origin. This is given credence by a 1530 A. D. Silliman Family Coat of Arms shown in an old manuscript on heraldry of families (Armorial Neuchatelois, p. 213) in the Berne Public Library. A picture of this coat of arms is ac companied by the following description : SILLIMAN, a family of Italian origin... coat of arms: blue with a chevron of silver, accompanied in the main field by a crescent shown overturned and two stars, all of gold; in the point below the chevron is a green tree planted on a mountain of the same field. In the crest of the head piece there is a star of gold, with a fleece of blue above the coat of arms. The family seat in Switzerland was at Neufchatel, and as late as 1850 the protestant pastor of Neuf cha tel, in charge of the curacy of Cote aux-fies was Jules Francois Silliman. 1 1 The writer has a picture of the Silliman Family Crest and also photostat copies of the 1850 correspondence between Benjamin and Jules Francois Silliman. v1 Preface Professor Benjamin Silliman of Yale carried on an extensive correspondence with Jules Francois Silliman, and it was fur ther learned that the family originally came from Lucca, but being protestants, they went to Geneva at the time of the Re formation. The original name was Sillimandi, later changed to Sillimand when Claud Sillimand became a citizen of Geneva in 1530 and finally it was changed to Silliman . Members· of the family are known to have·moved to Loraine and to Holland, and one member became a captain in the Austrian army. It is not unreasonable to speculate that some may have crossed the English channel and have later found their way to North Ire land, when King James I began his scheme of planting Ulster with Scotch and English protest.ants. They may have first inter married with English families and still later with their Scotch Irish neighbors, for the name Silliman is definitely not of Scottish extraction. Even to this day the name is not a common family name, and yet there are over four hundred persons in the United States at the present time who proudly bear the Silliman name. Since early colonial days there have been many promi nent Sillimans who have won distinction as soldiers, ministers, jurists, legislators, educators, and highly successiul business men. Several have been noted philanthropists. Sillimans have fought in every war from the American Re volution to World War II. Connecticut contributed to the Revo lution: Brig. General Gold Selleck Silliman; Major-General Wil liam Silliman ; Capt. Seth Silliman; Lt. Samuel Silliman; Lt. Seth Silliman; Captain Deodate Silliman; Quarter-master Jonathan Silliman, and at least one sailor under John Paul Jones, Samuel Silliman, Jr. Judge Ebenezer Silliman, father of Gold Selleck, was a member of the Committee of Correspondence. The Pennsylvania line contributed a member of the Com mittee of Correspondence, Squire Thomas; his sons Alexander and James, as well as four other members of the family who are known to have fought in· the Revolution. During the Civil Preface vii War General William Silliman Hillyer (the Grandfather of the poet Robert Silliman Hillyer-Pulitzer Prize winner and occupant of a Harvard chair) served General Grant as one of his chief staff office rs . The best known Silliman educator was Dr. Benjamin Silli man, Sr., appointed in 1802 as the first Professor of Chemistry and Natural History at Yale University. He was also a writer and the founder and first editor of the American Journal of Science. The present Silliman College at Yale University was named in his honor. In 1854 the father was succeeded by his son, Benjamin, Jr. Other educators include Dr. Justus Mitchell Silliman of Lafayette College ; William Silliman, who in 1852 founded Silliman College, a Presbyterian school in Clinton, Louisiana; and Dr. Horace B. Silliman, who in 1900 gave the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions the money to establish Silliman Institute (now Silliman University) in the Philippines. Ministers include the Reverend Robert Silliman, Yale grad cate ( 1737) of Connecticut fame; the Rev. Jonathan Silliman, Yale ( 1817) ; Reverend Alexander Perry Silliman, Princeton graduate; Rev. George Dent Silliman; Rev. Cyrus Silliman; and the Rev. Vincent Brown Silliman. Several Sillimans have served as Presbyterian or Congregational missionaries. Candour J. Sil liman, a graduate of Oglethorpe College in Georgia, was one of the earliest missionaries sent to work among the Choctaw Indians, serving until his death in 1856. Caroline Silliman, a descendant of Rev. Robert, was for many years a missionary educator in Turkey and later the Principal of a girls' school in Aleppo, Syria. Well-known businessmen include the wealthy New York Wall Street banker, Augustus Ely Silliman and the four Silli man brothers-Thomas, James, Samuel and John, who were early pioneer settlers of Pottsville, Pa., all successful business men and coal-n1ine owners . Jurists and legislators include Robert Silliman, representa tive for Fairfield, Connecticut (1722-28); Ebenezer Silliman, Speaker of the (Connecticut) House, 1773; Judge Wyllis Sil- vili Preface liman, the first Federal Judge of Ohio and a member of the Ohio Senate; Benjamin D. Silliman, prominent attorney and president of the N . Y . Bar Association ; Judge Reuben Silliman, appointed by President McKinley as one of the first Circuit Court Judges in Hawaii-later became a prominent Wall Street lawyer; Judge Thomas Stephen Silliman of California; and James W. Silliman, former member and Speaker of the Cali fornia Legislature from 1947 to 1955. Countless others whose grandmother or great-grandmother was a Silliman have served their country equally well. In addi tion to the Hillyer family who have carried Silliman as their middle name, mention may be made of the Evans family of Tennessee Silliman Evans, Sr., prominent newspaper editor and publisher of the Nashville Te1tnessean and his son, Silli man Evans Jr. Before Silliman Evans, Jr. died in 1961, it was the writer's privilege to tie up a broken line establishing his direct descent back to the original Connecticut Daniel Silliman . My own interest in the Silliman Family history really began when I accepted an appointment from the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions to serve as a history instructor in Silliman Institute ( now Silliman University) . Fortunately rr.t.7 travels to and from the Philippines and furloughs, on the average of one every four years, have enabled me· to look up and visit Sillimans in many parts of the United States and even in India where I recently discovered an old Silliman family who have lived in Calcutta for three genera tions. On my first visit to San Francisco in 1926 I called at the office of a prominent Silliman, an attorney. All that we had in common was that we were both Presbyterians. During another furlough in 1937 -38 I spent a year at Lafayette College and learned for the first time that there were many Silliman graves in and around Easton, Pa . My next visit to the United States was in 1944, when my wife and I, having defied the Japanese for nearly three years, by refusing to surrender, hitch-hiked a ride to Australia in an American submarine. For two years, from August 1944 to Preface ix July 1946, we lived in New York City where my interest in locating ne,v Sillimans in the Connectieut and New York areas was renewed . Subsequent furloughs in 1950-51, 1955, 1959, and ·1963. and a return trip by way of North Ireland made possible further research. In 1959 I obtained a mailing list of over three hundred Silliman names from a collection of telephone directories in ~e New York Public Library and then mailed to each a question~ naire with an appeal for all possible facts known to them ·about their own Silliman ancestors. The response was gratifying. Many of these persons have since sent me valuable records, 014 letters, newspaper clippings of death notices, and the like.·._· _:_ Furthermore I have spent many hours of research in pu~lic) . and private libraries in New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago~ ~~ Angeles, and in the Library of Congress. I have visited ll number of family graveyards in Connecticut and Pennsylvan~a, while other Sillimans in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohi~ have kindly visited other cemeteries and copied for me n~~r~ ous tombstone inscriptions.

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