"He was shipwrecked in the Antarctic, fell from a yard and was nearly killed; was attacked by pirates off the coast of Brazil; by the timehe was thirty-three he had made a fortune and lost it. Nonetheless, Thomas Valentine Sullivan's most long-lasting accomplishment was . . . he founded the YMCA in the United States."
From "Seaman Extraordinary" by Leonard M. Snyder
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A Boston sea captain and missionary, Thomas Valentine Sullivan was inspired by stories of the YMCA in England. With six colleagues, Sullivan called the first meeting leading to a constitution, and on December 29, 1851, the YMCA began at the Old South Church in Boston.
Central Connecticut Coast YMCA President Philip J. Dwyer, researching family genealogy recently, came across Thomas Sullivan's grave marker in the Woburn, Massachusetts cemetery. [See accompanying photograph provided by Phil Dwyer.]
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